


The Sign of the Marmora

by magisterpavus



Series: the adventures of victorian vampire lord shiro & vampire hunter keith [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: :), Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Biting, Blood Drinking, Bloodlust, But also, Consensual Mind Control, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Cults, Enthusiastic Consent, Established Relationship, Family Drama, Feral Keith (Voltron), M/M, Major Character Undeath, Marking, Mates, Mind Control, Peril, Possessive Behavior, Power Bottom Shiro (Voltron), Secrets, Sexual Slavery, Soul Bond, True Love, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27165208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: Keith has always been a strange human.But when Shiro goes missing and Keith embarks on a risky undercover mission to rescue the love of his life from a mysterious cult, the truth about Keith's strangeness is finally brought to light - at a terrible cost.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: the adventures of victorian vampire lord shiro & vampire hunter keith [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1357825
Comments: 32
Kudos: 353





	The Sign of the Marmora

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KEITH!!!
> 
> Here's a 30k long sequel to A Study In Scarlet that I said I would post like....a year ago. WOOPS.
> 
> I recommend reading A Study In Scarlet before this one if you haven't already! The prequel to those two, The Vampire's Valet, is more backstory stuff so not needed (but if you're craving more of this AU, it's there!).
> 
> Anyway: enjoy! I've had a lot of fun with this AU and it's possible there will be more in the future, who knows!

“I thought you said this was impossible.”

Two figures stand silhouetted before a wide window. The sky is gray; the city is grayer. The wallpaper in the small room is a dark, flaking yellow. The man is in black, and the woman is in red.

“It is...it was.” She touches her belly, mouth tilted in neither a smile nor a frown. She is thinking. The man is thinking, too, but in a rather more panicky manner. Because,

“The child wouldn’t be human...not fully,” the man continues. “What then?”

She hums, and tilts her head. “I’m not certain.” She looks at him. “But if our child appears human, you must raise it as one. It must not know of me. Nor of the Blades.”

The man stares at her. His eyes are dark as coal; they reflect her steady indigo. “Why not?” he whispers. “Why can’t our child know its mother?”

She gives him a look. It is not a kind look. Her lip lifts, and a sharp fang gleams. “This is forbidden,” she says simply. “You would be in danger if the Blades discovered us — and a child, that would be _far_ worse. We take vows, you know. I swore a blood oath.” Her lips quirk. “I broke it. For you.” She cups her belly more firmly, presses down ‘til she swears she can feel a heartbeat. “For this.”

The man takes her hands. “I will raise our child,” he promises, “but Krolia — there must be some way, something better than simply — leaving.”

“Oh, darling,” she murmurs, and steps close to him, eyes bright. “I will never leave. Not truly. I will always be near. I will keep our family safe. Always.”

“I love you,” he whispers, and kisses her soundly.

*

_TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER..._

“I hate you,” Keith groans, throwing a dramatic arm over his face as Shiro peers down at him. “You are — utterly awful. The worst vampire in all of London, _nay,_ the empire!”

“You don’t mean that,” Shiro wheedles. “Come, now, there’s tea in the parlor for you —”

“I don’t bloody want _tea,”_ Keith growls, glaring at the vampire lord out of the corner of his eye. “I want _sleep._ You cannot keep me up so late doing unspeakable things and then wake me up for work three hours later!” Shiro is the picture of contrition, but Keith knows he doesn’t understand, nocturnal bastard. Shiro has utterly ruined his sleep schedule, among other things, but Keith can never really hold it against him.

“How did you know it was three hours?” Shiro asks.

Keith grunts in despair. “Lucky guess.”

“If you’d really rather sleep,” Shiro sighs, “you are welcome to. As I’ve told you again and again, I am quite capable of doing this job alone.”

Keith’s lips part in dawning realization and outrage. “You kept me awake on purpose!” he exclaims, sitting up and stabbing an accusatory finger into Shiro’s chest. “You don’t want me to go. You think I’m going to get hurt. Is that it?”

Shiro’s shoulders slump. “Keith...you _know_ I don’t want you to get hurt. This is a dangerous job.”

“They are all dangerous jobs,” Keith retorts, but there is something harsh in Shiro’s expression, something genuinely frightened. Keith pauses. “How dangerous?”

“There was a new victim, at half past midnight,” Shiro sighs. “Twenty years old, male. Pale skin, long dark hair. Drained dry in Whitechapel, but only after multiple thrallings.”

“Multiple?” Keith swallows. “How can you tell? This killer always works alone…”

Shiro just shakes his head. It’s dark outside, and the moon is but a slim crescent, so the vampire is all shadows, save for his lantern-light eyes. “Please go back to sleep,” Shiro says. He does not often beg, not even with Keith. “Let me do this one. I have a terrible feeling about it.”

“Because the last victim looked like me?”

Shiro’s face crumples. He cups Keith’s cheek. “Yes, because he looked like you,” Shiro whispers fiercely. “You only have one luxite blade. There could be a dozen of them.”

“I have you,” Keith says. “You always watch my back.”

Shiro’s expression is unwavering. “And if I made a mistake? You remember what happened the last time, all those years ago,” he whispers. “When the Ripper found you...if I had arrived only a moment later, you would be…”

“Dead?” Keith prompts. “Maybe, but you don’t know that for certain –”

“Don’t,” Shiro warns, low and harsh, half-hissed. “All it would take is a second, Keith. A _second_ for them to —” He stops himself.

Keith stares up at him in the darkness. Shiro has moved, crouched over him like the predator he is, but they both know his intent is not to attack — not Keith, anyway. Never Keith.

His face is close. Keith can feel Shiro’s breath on his lips. It is not warm, not exactly. It reminds him of an autumn breeze, of things caught between life and death. Shiro is a scarlet leaf that will never fall, never wither, never die. Keith’s fingers splay over his jaw. Shiro holds very still.

“To what?” Keith whispers. “To tear open my throat?”

Shiro’s pupils dilate. His irises are thin golden rings, glowing in the gloom like night creatures’ eyes do. When his lips part, his fangs gleam, too, but only because Keith knows where to look for them. He’s a polite vampire, and teeth-baring, he has informed Keith, is bad manners.

(Keith likes when he’s a little bad, though.)

“I won’t go if you don’t want me to,” Keith adds. Shiro relaxes, or maybe slumps is a better word. “But I’ve lasted this long, Shiro, in a city full of vampires. I didn’t have you for fourteen years, and I managed. Don’t forget that.”

“That was luck,” Shiro says.

Keith’s brow furrows. “It wasn’t _luck_ that I escaped the Ripper. _I_ did that. _I_ got out of his thrall. You know that.”

Shiro moves off of him. “Luck,” he repeats, firm and cold. “He _let you_ get away. I don’t know why, but he did. And when he caught you the second time, he wasn’t so generous, was he.”

Keith scowls at him. “What are you on about, all of a sudden? Been thinking about this for awhile, have you?”

“Humans can be effective vampire hunters, I won’t deny that,” Shiro says. “But not you, not right now. I think you should stay in, wait out the storm. The killings have been getting worse, more frequent, and closer —”

“All the more reason for me to help catch him!” Keith exclaims. “I cannot believe you. Last time, you told me you trusted me, that I’d done a brilliant job of handling the situation —”

Shiro’s lips peel back from his fangs, politeness forgotten. “And you did! But the situation has _changed,_ Keith. We don’t think it’s just the one killer on the loose, now. There’s something else. And until we know what it is…”

“I stay here and sleep,” Keith finishes. “People are dying, and you want _me_ to be safe? _They’re_ not safe, Shiro! And what about you?”

Shiro sighs, weary. “What about me?”

“You’re not invincible,” Keith warns. “Don’t forget that.”

Shiro eyes him. “I’m far more invincible than you. Goodnight, Keith. Don’t do anything foolish. I will return by dawn.”

Keith’s eyes widen. “Shiro, no. Wait. I can go with you, you need someone to — no, wait, _fuck!”_

Shiro has already left the room before his sentence is finished, and when Keith grabs for the door handle, it is locked. It rattles at him mockingly. Keith throws up his hands, swears again for good measure, and flops back into bed with an angry grunt. He loves Shiro, but sometimes, he is terrible.

*

Shiro creeps along the rooftop, eyes narrowed, scenting the air for fresh blood.

There’s none, yet, but the world seems to be holding its breath. He doesn’t like it. And it is strange to be hunting alone, without Keith beside him as he often has been for the last year, but Shiro shoves these thoughts away. Keith is safe in bed at home and that is what matters. He must focus on the situation at hand. And that is…

Shiro freezes. In the alley below, a shadow moves. He leans forward, scents the air again — but there’s nothing, and neither is there a glint of eyes back at him. Unease ripples over him. If it isn’t a human, and it isn’t a vampire, then _what_ is down there?

It is a moonless night, but that doesn’t matter much to a vampire. His eyes pick out the shapes around him even in the gloom, but here, he sees only shadows, thick and impenetrable. He holds himself low against the rooftop, crouched, ready to strike. Perhaps their eyes are closed, and they are resting. If so, now is the perfect time to catch them unawares, but it’s a risk.

He leans forward to try to get a better look.

As he does, something flies through the air and pierces his chest.

Shiro cries out in surprise as he’s wrenched abruptly downward, off the rooftop and onto the cobblestones below. The thing in his chest tears him with it, and it’s — some kind of grappling hook, he thinks blearily, but one made of a luxite alloy, because it burns, badly. Shiro snarls and struggles to his feet, all at once aware of his vulnerability lying on the ground.

But the shadows anticipate this, and swarm over him, and his eyes widen in bewilderment, for they are — humans. They’re all humans, but he cannot smell them, only the ash and filth of the city, and before he can right his footing and lunge at them, another hook yanks him backwards where it sinks into his shoulder, and he falls hard onto it. Bone crunches. He can feel his blood soaking through his coat.

One of the scentless humans laughs. “Thought that’d be trickier. Your reputation precedes you, Lord Shirogane. The arrogant ones are always the easiest. Tie him.”

Shiro sees red. He rips free of the first hook and hurls himself at the speaker, who crumples easily under his weight, and whose throat is punctured by his bared fangs within moments. Hot blood pours into his mouth, but Shiro isn’t there to feed. He slices the man’s jugular open in a ragged slash, and coldly watches scarlet gurgle out in a steady flood from the ugly wound.

He’s seized immediately, this time not with hooks but with chains, with manacles that sear through his clothes and a collar that feels like a choker of live coals. Shiro howls and claws at them, bucks and writhes. He hates that he is reduced to this violent animal in his blind panic, but it has been a long time since he feared for his immortal soul, and he does, now.

And this time is different from the others, because this time, he will be leaving Keith behind. He cannot do that, he will _not._ He needs to return to Keith before dawn, like he promised —

They force something over his snapping jaws. A muzzle. A fucking _muzzle._ Shiro snarls behind the leather and strains against his bonds, but they hold fast. No one is laughing, now. The man’s corpse lies at his feet, bloodsoaked, and Shiro takes solace in that.

Then he thinks — the murders. What if they weren’t a lone, feral vampire’s doing? What if they were dozens of different vampires, caught like him, defending themselves, desperately throwing out multiple thralls —

He turns to the nearest human and pours the full force of his thrall onto them. It’s difficult to concentrate, like this, but he sees them go slack, stumble away, loosen their grip enough for him to surge up and —

They blindfold him. Shiro’s thrall, suddenly and shockingly, dissolves. It’s no normal blindfold – he simply cannot even _access_ the magic anymore. Behind the fabric, his eyes widen. Who are these people? More importantly — what the hell do they want with him?

This question remains unanswered, for the next second, a syringe is plunged into the nape of his neck, and fire is injected into his veins before everything goes black.

*

It is dawn. Shiro has not returned.

Keith paces the length of the bedroom. He’s still locked in, but that’s hardly an issue — he could just pick the lock. No, the issue is that Shiro has never broken a promise to him, until now. The issue is that paranoia gnaws at Keith’s stomach like a starving hound, because even though Shiro is a three century old creature of the night, a vampire lord of London’s Midnight Court, and more than capable of defending himself...Keith worries about him terribly. He always has, because nobody else did.

Nobody else sees Shiro’s dark circles, not just from hunger but from the exhaustion when he works himself too hard. Nobody else sees the way his jaw tightens just so when he’s uncomfortable, or the way he holds himself differently when he is in the room with someone who frightens or disgusts him. Nobody else hears the changes in his many voices, the subtle inflections and pauses which say so much if you know how to read them.

But Shiro is not here, now. Keith cannot read his face. He can only listen to his instincts, and every single one of them is telling him that something is very wrong.

He stands in front of the window, watching the lightening horizon warily. Vampires don’t burst into flames in sunlight, it’s true, but their skin is very sensitive to it. Keith’s seen Shiro sunburnt before, and it isn’t pleasant, even if they do heal quickly once out of the sunlight for long enough. He tries to remember what Shiro left the house wearing. His usual coat, he thinks, but isn’t sure.

With shaky fingers, Keith touches the healing bite marks on his throat, left from last night. “Please be alright,” he whispers to the windowpane. “Come back to me. Soon.”

Someone knocks on the door, quick and firm. Keith jumps, then tilts his head, wary. It isn’t Shiro. “Keith? May I come in?” Allura calls. Keith’s eyes widen. If she’s here…he’s leaping to his feet and calling back a hurried assent before she can ask again. A key turns in the lock and the door creaks open. Allura peers in uncertainly, hesitating on the threshold.

She is not hesitant in anything else, but Keith understands why she is, here. This place is, for all intents and purposes, Shiro’s lair. His inner sanctum, a sacred and private place. But Allura is family, and Keith knows Shiro would never turn her away. Keith ushers her in, and sits on the edge of the bed while she primly takes the settee.

“Lady Allura,” Keith says, fiddling with his shirtsleeves, “what is this about? Where’s Shiro?”

She sets her lips in a thin line. “I...I’m afraid I don’t know, Keith. He’s — well. It seems he’s vanished.”

Keith freezes. “Sorry, he — what do you mean he _vanished?”_

Allura swallows. “He was meant to report to me after investigating the newest attack. He never did. Nor did he contact Lord Lotor, or Mr. H, or the Holts, nor any of our other contacts. It isn’t like him.”

“No,” Keith whispers. “No, it isn’t.”

“There’s something else,” Allura says. “There was another body found, this one different. It wasn’t a typical street urchin or prostitute. It was a wealthy man, fashionable clothing and perfume and such. His jugular was ripped open in two places. I have seen wounds like that before. Exactly like that. From Shiro. As his sire, there is no mistaking it.”

Keith’s brow furrows. “Who was he? Why would Shiro kill a human on a job?”

Allura shakes her head slowly. “Here is where it gets truly troubling. The man’s face was mutilated beyond recognition, post-mortem. Additionally, all papers which could provide potential identification were presumably stripped from him. Someone wanted his identity absolutely obscured. However…we did find this.”

She reveals a golden pocketwatch. It is obviously well-made and expensive, but simple, not overly gaudy, which is likely why whoever stripped the body forgot or ignored it. Allura turns the watch over. Keith leans closer. There is a symbol etched into the back of it. It resembles a stylized rising sun, above which is a single star. Below the sun are three initials: O.G.D.

_“Ogd?”_ Keith reads.

Allura takes the pocketwatch from him. “No,” she huffs, “we believe this refers to the Order of the Golden Dawn.”

Keith squints. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“They are a highly clandestine and cryptic organization,” Allura replies. “I’m not certain it’s meant to mean much of anything. Except, perhaps, that dawn is dangerous to vampires, as the Order is dangerous to us, also. Or claims to be. We had little to substantiate their claims of purging vampires from this earth, until now.”

Keith stands, ashen. “Their claims of _what?”_

Allura sighs. “The Order, if this is indeed that, has been around for a long time. Five hundred years, at least. In the beginning, they sought to hunt us to extinction. Clearly, they failed in that endeavor. I believe their goal has...changed.”

“Changed to what,” Keith whispers.

“Well, they did not simply kill Shiro – I would feel it if they had,” Allura says. “They took him. That is the current theory.”

“Where?” Keith demands. “Where did this damned Order take him?”

“Somewhere utterly hostile to vampires, somewhere capable of keeping us in captivity, somewhere we cannot venture,” Allura murmurs. “And that is where _you_ come in.”

Keith searches her face. “Allura,” he says, more urgently, _“where is he?”_

She withdraws something else from her pocket, a slip of paper. “Lotor found a possible lead, but we do not…” She sucks in a breath. “Keith, I do not wish to alarm you. But you know that as Shiro’s sire, I share a deep bond with him, one I can tap into to link his mind to mine.” Allura swallows. Keith has never seen her look afraid, before. “Keith, I — I tried to connect to his mind, but it was like falling into a dark well. I do not know what they have done to him, but something is terribly wrong.”

“We have to help him,” Keith whispers, his voice unsteady. _“I_ have to help him.”

“You will have all the support the Midnight Court can give you,” Allura promises, handing him the slip of paper. Then, softer, she adds, “Please bring him back safe...and do not neglect your own safety.”

Keith nods, distracted, peering down at the paper. “An address,” he murmurs. “In a well-off part of town, even more so than here...what’s this about?”

“It’s a party, in three nights’ time,” Allura says grimly. “Or at least, that is their cover story.”

“You want me to go to a party for London’s elite to save Shiro?” Keith exclaims.

Allura purses her lips. “Why don’t you get dressed...there is someone you ought to meet.”

*

They meet the contact beside the Thames in broad daylight. Allura is dressed in a midnight blue gown and carries her black parasol, holding her head high as if she can ignore the sun with sheer force of will alone. If anyone can, it is Allura.

Keith feels out of place walking beside her in his simple steward’s jacket, dark pants, and loose collared shirt. He shoves his hands into his pockets and whistles awkwardly until she tells him to stop. He stops.

Keith sees her before Allura can point her out — she’s a young woman in powder blue and pale pink, standing at the river’s edge, staring down into the churning gray water with a small frown. Her hair is long and golden, done up in two thick braids which give her an almost childish appearance. She wears a wide and thickly plumed hat which covers her face, and though she stands in the shadow of the nearby bridge, she holds a pink lace parasol in her gloved hands.

“There,” Allura murmurs. They approach quietly, but of course the woman hears them anyway — she is a vampire. Keith isn’t quite sure how he’s able to discern this, but he has never been wrong before. He thinks it’s the way they hold themselves; so still, like statues, yet poised to move in an instant.

She’s pretty, but her expression is frightened, and there are dark circles under her jewel-bright eyes. “Princess,” she whispers. Her eyes dart to Keith. “And you — must be Keith? Oh, my.”

Self-consciously, Keith tugs his collar up, hiding the bite marks too late. “Er, yes,” he says. “I’m Keith. Hello…?”

Allura inclines her head. “Thank you for meeting us. Keith, this is Miss Romelle.”

“Yes, of course,” Romelle murmurs. “When Prince Lotor contacted me, I — well. I don’t know how you found me. I have been...awfully quiet about all this. I didn’t want any of them to find out, and hunt me down again.” She swallows, and clutches her parasol tighter. “But, but he promised you wouldn’t let that happen. So here I am.”

“You are quite safe with us,” Lady Allura promises. “And with him.” She nods to Keith.

Romelle relaxes a little. “That is good to hear, Your Highness,” she whispers.

“Please, ‘Allura’ is just fine.” Allura takes Romelle’s trembling hand between her own. “You look hungry, dear. Why don’t we find you a proper meal?”

Romelle hesitates. “I — I stay away from any of the vampire cafes,” she admits. “They send scouts there, you know. It’s how _they_ keep track of us…”

“I was not suggesting a cafe, dear.” Allura leads her down the cobblestones, and then down a street Keith does not recognize. The back of his neck prickles, and he frowns, shakes it off. Allura is a friend. He can trust her. Stubbornly, his instincts remain on high alert.

Romelle glances back at Keith. “Surely not — him?”

Keith almost trips over a cobblestone.

Allura’s hand tightens around hers. “No,” she says. “I have a friend. He runs a far more discreet business, one that I can assure you _they_ do not know of. This way.”

They’re in Chelsea, with its neat townhouses and well-trimmed hedges. Allura leads them up to the third house in the row, a cheery yellow color with heavy floral curtains in the bay windows, and a neat, well-loved garden resplendent with colorful blooms and lush foliage, including a variety of exotic plants that seem unlikely to flourish outside of a greenhouse, but appear to be in excellent health nonetheless. They climb the stairs, and Allura gives the door two smart, short raps.

It opens almost immediately. The gentleman standing there is none other than the mysterious Mr. H of Shiro’s soirées, dressed in a dark gold waistcoat and welcoming them in with a boldly fanged smile. “An honor, Princess Allura,” he says, and nods to Keith — they’ve met before, albeit under stranger and often more inebriated circumstances. He peers down at Romelle, who is somehow more nervous than before. “A new guest, hm? She certainly looks like she could do with a hearty meal.”

“Really, it is no trouble,” Romelle stammers, but Allura pushes her inside gently with a hand on the small of her back. Keith follows with both curiosity and wariness. This place...he does not have a vampire’s senses, but he knows the scent of blood well enough, as well as the scent of human food, of alcohol, and the soft wet sounds of vampires feeding.

Mr. H takes the lead with Romelle as the door shuts behind them, and Allura pauses beside Keith, sniffing delicately. “You are anxious,” she murmurs. “Mr. H has a good establishment. He and Shiro are friends, if that makes you feel better.”

“I am anxious about Shiro,” Keith mutters back, distracted. He glances at a painting as they walk through the front hall to the large parlor beyond. It is an interesting choice of subject matter: a luxurious feast of meats, fruits, vegetables, wine, savory pies, sweet pies, eggs, potatoes, and an impressive roast pig. For someone unable to eat most of it, Mr. H seems to be an admirer of the culinary arts. Keith looks back at Allura. “What happened to Romelle?”

“She ought to tell you herself,” Allura says. Keith frowns at her. “She was captured, Keith,” Allura adds, quieter. “By the Order. Like Shiro.”

“And she survived?” Keith exclaims.

She gives him a warning look. “Hush. The last thing we want is to scare her off. Lotor said she had vital information for us, he’s certain of it, but she was too frightened to tell him.”

“I’m not surprised. Lotor isn’t exactly unintimidating,” Keith says.

Allura snorts, catches herself, and clears her throat. “Ah, no. So — yes, she survived, but clearly not without lasting damage. Something quite traumatic happened to her there, I fear. We must ensure Shiro does not meet the same fate.”

“Yes,” Keith agrees, still looking at the painting. His stomach ties itself in knots, but he cannot allow himself to worry too much, here. Allura will smell it the instant that he panics, and she may even question his ability to aid in saving Shiro. So he takes a deep breath, and forces himself to be calm, perfectly calm.

This calm only falters somewhat when they walk into the parlor and find it occupied by several vampires and twice as many humans. It’s an interesting scene, to say the least — more domestic than debauched, considering several of the humans are eating some sort of soup that smells delicious and chatting pleasantly amongst themselves, while the vampires who are feeding and thralling are doing so in a more casual than sexual manner. Keith has never been inside a vampire cafe, but this seems like the home kitchen version of one.

Mr. H has found Romelle a green loveseat with a waiting human, a freckled young woman who beams at Romelle and begins talking with her immediately. Romelle looks bewildered, but she isn’t fleeing. Allura smiles to herself, and motions for Keith to join her in a nearby alcove just as Romelle leans in and takes the first bite.

They sit together, and Keith squirms, feeling out of place. She nudges him with an elbow. “Oh, what is it?”

Keith isn’t sure why he says it. “Are you hungry?”

Allura blinks, taken aback. She touches her face and frowns. “Not _terribly_...why, do I look it?”

“No,” Keith says. “I just — wondered.” Allura’s eyes narrow; she’s expecting more of an answer from him than that. Keith sighs. “I mean, that _is_ what all the humans are here for. I feel strange just sitting here.”

Allura just looks more confused. “Oh. Would you like to go outside, Keith? Are you uncomfortable? I had no desire to —”

Keith flushes. “No. That isn’t — look, would you like to feed from me, or not?”

Allura peers at him. “Are you quite sure you’re alright, Keith?”

“I’m fine,” Keith says. “Really. And I know you’re like Shiro, always so busy with solving other people’s business that you forget yourself sometimes.”

“Well…” Allura coughs. “I am rather peckish, come to think of it.” Wordlessly, Keith tilts his neck out to her, but Allura shakes her head and takes his wrist instead, her expression unreadable, though Keith can guess what she’s thinking: _That’s Shiro’s territory._ She frowns down at his hand. “Would you like me to thrall you, or is that —”

“Yes,” Keith says. He swallows. He doesn’t understand the sensation in his chest, tight and frantic and on the verge of spilling over, but he understands it when Allura tips his chin up and pulls him into the deepening glow of her gaze. He understands the fall, the sudden numbing weightlessness, the world fading to black at the edges until there is only Allura, and —

_No._ No, that isn’t right.

Keith can feel his body, tense and immobile, but he isn’t in it, he’s still falling and falling into darkness, but it isn’t _his_ darkness, it isn’t Shiro waiting for him at the end, and despite the calming glow of the cosmos around him, Keith panics.

He thinks Allura is calling to him, telling him to slow down, to let go, but he doesn’t want to listen. He wants Shiro. He wants _out._ But he can’t find Shiro, can’t feel him — when he reaches into the stars, there is only icy cold, seeping under his skin, chilling his blood, muddling his thoughts, and still Keith pushes through it, because he knows, he _knows_...wherever Shiro is – he _is_ out there, for Keith refuses to believe otherwise – something terrible is happening to him.

But the dark closes in on him, and Keith opens his mouth, screams Shiro’s name, hears his own voice as if from underwater, warped and hollow and inhuman, before even that fades into nothing.

*

“...in all my centuries, never seen anything quite like this.”

“He…resisted your thrall?”

“Not just resisted. _Rejected_ …”

“...is it even possible for humans to _do_ that?”

“Keith did. Oh — he’s awake. Keith, oh, dear. How are you feeling?”

Keith cracks his eyes open with effort. “Shiro,” he croaks, skin clammy and head spinning. “Where…”

“I’m so sorry, Keith,” Allura murmurs, her face coming into focus above him. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her hair unpinned in a messy silver halo and eyes wide with worry. “I had no idea you would react to my thrall in such a way, or I never would have attempted it.”

Keith blinks at her, rubbing his eyes and groaning at the stab of pain through his head. “What...I rejected your thrall?”

“Yes…” Allura nods slowly. “Quite violently. You were – having some sort of fit, utterly unresponsive even when I severed the connection. You kept saying Shiro’s name, like a mantra, then...collapsed, fainted just like that. What did you think was happening?”

“I – I panicked when I realized it was your thrall, not Shiro’s,” Keith mumbles, sinking down into the pillows. “I was trying...to escape. To find him. But – but I couldn’t. He was...gone.”

Allura sucks in a sharp breath. “You felt it too?” she whispers. “How...but you are not his sire, nor is he yours. You are not even a vampire…”

Mr. H stands near the door with Romelle, his arms crossed and brow furrowed as he says thoughtfully, “I think I’ve heard of cases like this before. I’m no doctor, but I find hypnosis fascinating, and it bears some similarity to our thralls. The difference is that humans’ hypnosis techniques do not result in a permanent or stuck trance state – they can’t, because human survival instincts will force the mind to full, waking consciousness if need be, if there is a loud, alarming sound or something like that.”

“Whereas vampiric thralls take away those survival instincts, make the trance as permanent as the vampire wants it to be,” Keith mutters. “Right?”

Mr. H nods. “They’re supposed to. The prey isn’t supposed to want to get away, after all.” He eyes Keith. “But sometimes...sometimes the trance state takes a little too well. I’ve only seen it in two situations – between vampires who kept humans as thralls against their will for prolonged periods, even their entire lives, as they did in the old days –”

“I’m _not_ Shiro’s pet _,”_ Keith snaps, curling in on himself. “That isn’t –”

Mr. H holds up a finger. _“Or,_ between vampires and humans who were mates. Humans who chose to only be thralled by a single vampire for prolonged periods, as you have with Shiro. Although…” He trails off.

“What?” Keith demands, choosing to ignore the bit about ‘mates’ – he and Shiro have not discussed that yet. Maybe now, they never will. His gut twists.

“All of those other human cases, they, well, er...died,” Mr. H admits. Allura covers her mouth with a gasp, looking to Keith in horror. “Not – not immediately, but the event damaged their minds irreparably. They were stuck in the between-trance state and couldn’t get out. But _you_ got out. _How_ did you get out…? And from a thrall as powerful as Lady Allura’s...”

“I just wanted to find Shiro,” Keith sighs, sitting up. “I’m fine. We’re wasting time. Who knows what’s happening to Shiro right now while we sit here and talk about hypnosis –”

“Keith, you must rest,” Allura insists.

“Actually,” Romelle says, hushing the rest of the room at once, “may I speak to Keith, alone? I think...he and I have some things to discuss.” She glances at Allura. “About Shiro, and about... _them.”_

Allura pauses, then to Keith’s relief rises from the bed and nods. “Very well, Romelle. Keith, if you need anything –”

“Yes, Princess,” Keith promises. “I’ll call. And, uh – thank you for not killing me.”

Allura shakes her head, leans down, and kisses him quickly on the brow with trembling lips before marching out of the room in a loud rustle of skirts. Keith blinks at her. Mr. H clears his throat and follows Allura out, and when the door shuts, Romelle tentatively approaches.

“You and the Princess are close,” Romelle starts.

“Not like that,” Keith retorts, brushing his hair back into his face to cover where Allura kissed him.

“No, no, I didn’t mean –” Romelle bites her lip. “She cares for you, is all I meant. She trusts you, and you her.”

“Of course,” Keith says. “She’s never given me a reason not to, and I suppose I haven’t given her any, either.”

“And Mr. Shirogane?” Romelle sits uncertainly at the end of the bed, perched on the very edge and picking at her skirts with her fingers.

“I trust him with my life,” Keith says immediately.

Romelle looks...sad. She bows her head. “Don’t trust him,” she whispers. “Not anymore. If you go to find him, to take him away from that awful place...it won’t be him, not the man you know, not really.”

Keith leans forward, heart in his throat. “Explain. Please.”

Romelle closes her eyes. “I – I can’t. I’m sorry, but...I do not know what they did to me. Only that – I was _so hungry._ Starving, mad with it, but it was more than that...I was angry, too. I didn’t feel like a person anymore. Not even an animal, just...some _creature,_ a monster wanting nothing but blood, more blood, always more blood. And there was never enough. They kept us like that.”

“Us – there were many of you?” Keith whispers.

She nods miserably. “In cages, or solitary cells, depending on how dangerous we were. They…” Romelle’s chin wobbles. “They always talked about ‘taming’ us. Or breaking us. I think...that was what they wanted. To control us.”

Keith shudders, praying she’s somehow wrong. “To what end?”

She smiles, thin and bitter. “It’s what humans do. Control things. Toy with them. Own them. I don’t know. They never ‘tamed’ me...but the ones they did tame, oh, they were like... _dolls_...collared and jeweled and empty…” Romelle stares at the floor.

“How did you escape?” Keith asks gently – as gently as he can when his blood is boiling.

She shakes herself, looks back up, dazed. “There was a boy,” she says. “He unlocked my cage. I think – he thought I was pretty.”

“What happened to him?” Keith thinks he already knows.

“I ate him,” Romelle says, matter-of-factly, then slumps, head in her hands. “Down to the bone.”

Keith is silent. Vampires are capable of that, certainly, but...to imagine their precise, needlesharp fangs ripping through flesh in a murderous frenzy – his arms are covered in goosebumps.

“I remembered something,” Romelle says suddenly, “just now.” Keith tears his gaze away from his prickling skin. “The boy who freed me – he was wearing such nice clothes. They all were. Prince Lotor mentioned a party, and...yes, they had so many parties. So many people dressed so well, they were wealthy, they had to be…”

“Had to be? Why?” Keith questions.

Romelle sighs. “Apologies. I cannot remember much. I was...you know. Not really there.”

“Thank you for telling me what you do remember,” Keith says. “It’s...helpful.”

“I hope so...shall I call them back in?” Romelle asks.

“No, I can go to them myself,” Keith says, and climbs out of bed, steadying himself for a moment on the nightstand before staggering to the door with determination. He’s mastered walking again by the time he reaches the parlor, which is now vacant save for Mr. H and Allura.

“Keith! You should be in bed,” Allura scolds, but it’s half-hearted – they both know it’s not happening.

“Romelle said I need fancy clothes,” Keith declares. “Where can I get those?”

To his surprise, Mr. H grins, a gleam in his eyes. “I think I know someone who can help…”

*

“The name is Lance. Mr. Lance Serrano.”

“Right,” Keith says. “You attend Shiro’s soirées. With Mr. H.”

Lance, who is dressed in several too many shades of blue, gives him what is probably meant to be a stern look, but comes off as petulant. Also, he’s blushing. “I don’t see how that’s at all relevant,” he retorts. “The esteemed Princess Allura, and yes, _Mr. H,_ asked me here to teach you how to be a gentleman, so that is why I am here.”

“You’re not a gentleman,” Keith points out, nonplussed. Lance splutters at him.

“This is just as amusing as I expected,” Lotor drawls, his entrance into Shiro’s drawing room utterly silent. Keith glances over at him, eyebrow raised. Lance freezes, and closes his mouth.

_“He’s_ a gentleman,” Keith tells Lance, jerking his head at the approaching vampire lord. “And an arse.”

“Flattered,” Lotor sighs. “You have such a sweet tongue, dear Keith, I am not worthy.”

Lance slowly regains color in his face and clears his throat. “Um.” He coughs again. “Princess Allura said you needed my assistance in concocting a certain disguise for a certain social gathering…”

“Indeed she does,” Lotor cuts in. “You and I will be transforming Keith here into a little lordling. Personally, I like ‘Lord Helsing,’ but that may be too obvious. How smart do we suppose these people are? If they’re capturing vampire lords, I wager they’re fools.”

Lance’s eyes widen. _“Who_ is doing _what?”_

“You’re not here to ask questions,” Lotor tells him sweetly.

“Some bloody cult captured the love of my life,” Keith mutters. Lotor gives him a despairing look, but Keith’s not in the mood for beating around the bush. “He just happens to also be a vampire lord.”

“Right, that makes absolute sense,” Lance croaks.

Keith folds his arms. “But _that_ doesn’t matter. What matters is getting him out of there — why do I have to be a lordling? I thought I only needed fancy clothes.”

“Not just _any_ lordling.” Lotor grins. “No, you’re going to have to be the most flamboyant, arrogant, well-dressed guest there. They need to know you have money, and not question where you get it from, or where you came from.”

Lance tilts his head, looking Keith over with a critical eye. “I can certainly work with that,” he muses. “I’m thinking red...and black. Lots of lace.”

Keith looks from Lotor to Lance, brow furrowed. “But why do I need _money_ to save Shiro? I have a luxite knife. Though Romelle did mention...wait. Have you found something else?”

In reply, Lotor tosses him something — an envelope. The red wax seal is broken, but it is stamped with the unmistakable initials: _O.G.D._

“Read it.”

Keith opens the envelope. It’s an invitation.

He skims it. A few words jump out: _tamed, pet, caged, price,_ and _selection._

Keith slams down the envelope on the nearest table, hard. “They’re capturing vampires as —”

“Prisoners, pets, slaves, amusements, whores, trophies, call it whatever you wish,” Lotor says. “Yes. They are. Shiro is among them.”

Keith sinks down into one of the armchairs. “I’m going to kill them,” he says, almost alarmed at the calm, hollow quality of his own voice.

“No,” Lance says, stepping in front of him. “You’re going to trick and rob them blind. Believe me, that will be worse than death for people like them.”

“I’m still bringing my blade,” Keith warns.

“Very well,” Lotor says easily, his eyes glinting in a way that suggests he appreciates Keith’s promise of bloodshed. He isn’t exactly a pacifist, himself. “Then you shall have a marvelous cloak to conceal it under.”

“Red and black?” Lance says hopefully.

Keith nods, gripping the chair’s armrests with ivory knuckles, not noticing the fabric tear beneath his sharpening nails.

*

The courtyard is a rippling sea of masked faces and fine silk which parts before Keith with a low chorus of wondering murmurs and speculative stares. He ignores them all.

He isn’t here for them. In the end, it was not difficult for Lance and Lotor to teach him how to be an arrogant little lordling who only deigned to give others attention if they had something he wanted...because Keith only wants one thing from them.

He’s flanked by Mr. Lance Serrano, in blue, and Miss Katie Holt, in green. Keith isn’t sure what good Lance can do here except maybe convince the other guests that Keith doesn’t have murder on the mind; however, Miss Holt is a genuine assett.

According to Allura, she is well-trained in the fine art of fencing, as well as the finer art of pickpocketing. Her job here is to help Keith figure out where Shiro is being kept, and who he has to talk to in order to get Shiro out.

Any pickpocketing she chooses to do is her business. Keith wouldn’t blame her – these people wear their wealth in gaudy strings around their neck and shiny watches dangling from tempting golden chains. If Keith had told his child self in a Whitechapel orphanage that this was his future, he would have thought himself mad. But there he is, draped in jewels and lace and ribbons, no expenses spared for the luxurious Lord Akira.

The sooner this is over with, the better, but Keith _does_ feel powerful, and he relishes that feeling. Everyone is looking at him, sizing him up and looking away, cowed, when they conclude he has more wealth, more power, more potential than them. It’s all a facade, and that makes it all the sweeter.

Many of the guests are older, graying members of society hiding behind their masks, but Lord Akira is a beautiful young man in his prime who exudes confidence verging on arrogance. How could they not be envious?

Some, however, are too preoccupied with their companions to pay him mind. _Companion_ is not the right word for them, but it’s the one Katie uses when she sees the first one and mutters, “On your left, there’s a fang, some kind of companion. Don’t know what they’ve done to it, but…”

The vampire is a young man, his freckled face staring blankly at the opposite wall, a heavy metal muzzle strapped to his face, obscuring his mouth. Around his neck is an ornate collar, a chain leash attached to it. A masked guest holds the other end of the leash, idly twirling it around her finger and drinking champagne, giggling with the surrounding humans like she isn’t holding a vampire prisoner who is very likely drugged beyond belief.

_“Akira,”_ Lance hisses in his ear, “would you please relax? You’re going to break that!”

Keith looks at his wine glass. There are hairline fractures all through it. His knuckles are white.

“They’re treating them like animals,” Katie whispers in horror as a pair of leashed vampires passes, more decorated than the first.

“Worse,” Keith mutters. “Worse than animals.”

“Are you going to be alright?” Lance asks anxiously.

Keith shakes his head, jaw clenched. “We need to find Shiro.”

The noise of the crowd fades as a loud voice rises above the others — Keith can’t see the speaker. “What a pleasure to have you all here tonight, ladies and gentlemen! I am happy to announce the bidding will be beginning shortly in the Red Room!”

Keith glances about for any indication of where this ‘Red Room’ might be, and sees a portion of the crowd breaking off, leaving the courtyard through one of the doors leading into the main manor house. Keith follows them, Katie and Lance close on his heels.

“Don’t you think we ought to figure out what’s in the Red Room, first?” Lance mutters.

“I think we can make some inferences,” Katie mutters back, “from the usage of ‘bidding’ and the collared fang over there.”

Keith ignores them both and presses forward. The crowd carries them down a long hallway laden with mirrors in gilded frames which makes the party guests look twice as numerous as they truly are, a rippling, endless mass of eager bodies and masked faces straining towards the faint red glow at the end of the hall.

The Red Room is less of a room and more of a theatre, arranged as an operating theatre might be, though at its center there is no table nor gurney but instead an arrangement of cages which shine in the smoky scarlet light of the oil lamps. Keith presses to the front of the crowd with a dull, numb determination, and hears Katie’s quiet gasp behind him as a spotlight falls over the stage.

There are vampires in the cages, and they are not placid pets, but snarling monsters with slavering jaws and eyes wild with hunger. Their veins are dark beneath their ashen skin and their glowing eyes shine out from deep hollows. They are clothed, but barely, in sheer, dark, shimmering cloth and golden chains.

Keith sees Shiro at once. He is in the central cage, and unlike the others is not muzzled, and does not lunge at the bars or gnash his teeth. Instead, he sits crouched, face shadowed, eyes glowing with golden hatred. Shiro’s expression has never been so filled with cold violence – not loathing nor contempt but a vicious, furious malice. Keith shivers at the sight. It is an expression that does not belong on Shiro’s face, inhuman in the depths of its hate.

“That’s him,” Lance whispers.

Katie hurries back – she must have slipped away to investigate the auctioneer’s booth at the theatre’s front. She presses a slip of paper into Keith’s hand. “For bidding,” she says.

Keith takes the paper. “On what?”

She looks at him grimly. “Shiro.”

The paper crumples in Keith’s hand and he shakes his head. _“No._ That’s not –”

“You must, if we are to get him out of here,” Katie retorts.

She’s hushed by the auctioneer’s voice, roaring above the murmuring crowd. Keith doesn’t hear what they’re saying; the words are drowned out in the dull roar of blood in his ears. He cannot look away from Shiro, but not Shiro, staring from between the bars out at the greedy crowd with eyes Keith does not recognize. _What have they done to you, Takashi?_ he wonders, nails digging into his palms. _How much have they hurt you for you to look at them with such awful eyes?_

The auctioneer is walking past the cages, gesturing to each one and naming the vampires within. It’s strange, Keith almost expected them to be stripped of their names, but he supposes the names increase the price. They certainly do in the case of Lord Shirogane. When the auctioneer stops in front of Shiro’s cage and says his name, the crowd murmurs in low delight...at least, until Shiro leaps to his feet too fast for any human to react and forces his head through the bars to get at the auctioneer’s neck, fangs piercing pale skin in a thick spurt of blood.

Katie covers her mouth and Lance retches. Keith just stares as Shiro snarls, still snapping, fangs working in the messy wound until two other auctioneers pull the first away, his head hanging down as he tries and fails to staunch the thick flow of blood with his white gloved hands. The scent and sight sends all of the other vampires into a frenzy, and in seconds all of the cages are rattling, their occupants hurling themselves against the unyielding metal again and again, stopped short by the chains and heavy collars.

The bleeding auctioneer is hastily led offstage; he collapses as soon as he gets down the steps. Shiro stands, head bowed, panting harshly, blood dripping down his chin. One of the auctioneers takes the first’s place, and stands at a marked distance from Shiro’s cage with a rueful smile. “This one, as you can see, is not yet tamed, and will not be in tonight’s auction...think of him as entertainment, for now. The others, however, will make a perfectly obedient pet.”

He nods to someone offstage, and a strange, melodic tone fills the air. It sounds like a harpsichord, or perhaps a lute, but whatever it is, all of the vampires fall to their knees like marionettes with cut strings, cowering at the sound, their eyes turning glassy. Shiro grits his teeth, falling to one knee, but his burning eyes do not change. Keith takes a certain solace in that. They cannot control him wholly...not yet. Yet it seems Shiro cannot control himself, either.

“So much for bidding,” Lance mutters. “Now what will we do?”

“Wait and see,” Katie sighs. “He may not officially be up for auction, but show them enough money, and they might change their mind.”

The auctioneer moves on to the next cage. Even after the tone has faded, the other vampires remain still and nonthreatening. Keith thinks of what Mr. H said about hypnotism, and wonders if the Order has found a way to create thralls of their own.

He recalls what Romelle said about hunger and madness and how the Order ‘kept her like that.’ But it isn’t that they aren’t feeding the vampires...not exactly. Keith has seen starving, desperate vampires, and it’s not a pretty sight, but it’s nothing like this. No, this is something else, a form of mental bondage powerful enough to change even a three-century-old vampire lord.

Keith is going to free him. He has to.

The bidding begins and the numbers and names buzz in Keith’s skull like errant flies. Katie nudges him, but Keith isn’t listening. He’s looking towards the series of archways on the far side of the Red Room. They’re guarded by several people in long robes and hoods, but a few guests pass through the archways after passing something that is almost certainly money over to the hooded guards, and exchanging a few words with them.

As Keith watches the archways, there’s a scuffle onstage, and then Shiro’s cage is carried off by several of the robed people, the vampire within gone limp, likely sedated, though his eyes remain narrow, burning slits of fury. They bring him through the archways and into unseen darkness. Keith’s hands curl into fists.

“Stay here. If I don’t return in an hour, something’s probably gone wrong,” Keith says to Katie and Lance, who gawk at him in confusion before Keith hurries away from them. They’re going to try to follow him, Keith knows, but he cannot let them do that. This is something he must do alone.

He draws on the wrist of one of the guests, a tall man in a hawklike mask. The man starts and looks down at him with a scowl which quickly smooths over into intrigued expectation as he takes in Keith’s extravagant attire. “Can I help you?” he asks.

Keith points to the archways. “Is that where they keep the vampires?”

The man smiles. “New here, are you? Yes, that way leads to the underground cells. Did you see that violent beast they just carried off down there? They keep the new ones in the cells, while they prepare them for sale.”

“Prepare them how?” Keith asks, aiming for innocent though bile stings in his throat, acrid and angry.

The man waves a hand. “I don’t know the details, but it’s something to do with the Order’s brilliant serum, Sunshine Serum, they call it. Renders even the strongest and cleverest of vampires into little more than a hungry animal. And once they’ve stripped them down to bare instincts, well…” His smile is more unpleasant this time. “It’s as easy as training a dog, or so I’ve heard. Mine came to me already nicely broken in.”

It’s then that Keith sees the vampire attached to the man via a glittering leash, held with as little care as the first woman he’d seen. The vampire at the end of this one is a young woman, her blonde hair coiffed and throat strung with jewels so ornate you could almost pretend they were an expensive necklace, not a collar. Her eyes are dark and dull.

Keith thinks of Romelle and has to quell the sudden and shocking urge to wring the neck of the man leering down at him. It’s a violent instinct which shocks him in its intensity. His nails sting more than usual when he digs them into his palms, and if he had looked down, he would see they were more claw than nail.

But he has eyes only for the archways. “I prefer mine a little wilder,” Keith says through gritted teeth. “How do I get into the cells?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” the man chuckles. “For a man with your wealth, anyway. I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

Keith is already brushing past him and hurrying to the archways, to one of the hooded men. “Hello,” he greets, his shadowed face partly visible under the hood. He eyes Keith with curiosity. “I’m afraid no guests are allowed past this point, sir.”

“I would like to see the silver-haired vampire,” Keith says. “The one who attacked the auctioneer.”

The man’s eyebrows raise. “Is that so?”

Keith presses several bank notes into the man’s hand. “Is that enough?”

The man counts them, his brows raising higher. “You know that one is too dangerous to spend the night with, I hope.”

“Spend the night –” Keith’s vision whites out with the heat of his own rage in that moment, but when it clears again, the man is standing untouched despite Keith’s currently overwhelming urge to murder him. Keith clears his throat. “I am aware. Still, I would like to see him. Is that going to be a problem?”

The man counts the notes again, then slides them into his robes and says, “No. Not a problem. If you’ll follow me, sir.”

Keith follows the hooded man down the passageway, and watches the walls turn from solid brick to dark, packed earth. The floor is cobblestone, and their footsteps echo far into the darkness ahead, illuminated only by the flickering wall sconces and the hooded man’s oil lamp. The ceiling is low, and the tunnel is less than ten feet wide, narrow enough for Keith to be terribly aware of it.

“If I may ask,” the hooded man murmurs after a while, “what draws you to Lord Shirogane in particular?”

Keith’s laugh is bitter even to his own ears. The hooded man looks at him in surprise. “He killed my father many years ago,” Keith lies. It is a lie that hurts him to the bone, but the hooded man nods like it makes perfect sense. Keith hopes he dies a horrible death, someday soon, along with all the others in this wretched place.

“An excellent reason,” the hooded man replies, “though, as tempting as revenge may be, I would remind you that only Shirogane’s owner can exact such a punishment upon him.”

“And how much would that cost me?” Keith retorts.

The hooded man doesn’t skip a beat; he’s clearly been hoping Keith would ask. “Thirteen hundred pounds,” he says.

It’s an absurd amount of money, more than a decade’s worth of Keith’s own wages. But no price should be placed on a person, vampire or not, and Keith would pay any price to get Shiro back anyway.

Also, Lotor provided him with what is essentially a bottomless purse. There are perks to having a vampire prince as an ally.

“Very well,” Keith replies coolly.

The hooded man inclines his head with a small smile, lamp swinging ahead of him. “What is your name, good sir?”

“Lord Akira,” Keith says. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course, sir. I would be honored to answer.”

“I do not know as much of the Order as I would like,” he says. “Though I see the appeal of keeping vampires in such a state, I’m afraid I don’t quite know the reasoning behind it. Is it religious, or have I been misled?”

“Religious, yes, you could call it that,” the hooded man murmurs. “They are demons, of course, these things that walk among us called ‘vampires.’ But the churches of our cities are cowards who bow to their will because they are wealthy and powerful, and they will burn in the fires of Hell for that, I have no doubt.” He sniffs. “We of the Order, however, are not fooled nor seduced by vampire money and influence. We seek to bring these creatures down to the level they belong at, you see...less than animals, mindless servants. Except, instead of serving their dark master, they serve us.”

“Dark...master?” Keith repeats.

“The Devil,” the hooded man says. “Of course.” He glances at Keith. “Do you see? We in the Order of the Golden Dawn strive for a future where vampires no longer run amok doing as they please, pulling at the strings of our governments and killing mothers and fathers and children alike in our streets, spreading the curse of their blood. Our future is a peaceful one, and for that peace, vampires must be creatures reduced and controlled by us.”

“A worthy cause,” Keith manages. “Though – I must ask, how does paying to fuck vampires factor into this dream of yours?”

The hooded man stumbles and Keith’s lip curls, half-wishing he had fallen and broken his neck on the uneven cobblestones. The man coughs. “Er,” he says. “It is – a matter of exerting our superiority over the demons, of course.”

“Of course,” Keith replies sweetly, and hopes the man hears the mocking note in his voice. Judging by his flinch, he does.

Keith expected many cells, like a prison, but they are spaced out, few and far between. He supposes that’s good, as it means they aren’t keeping hundreds of vampires down here, but there are still too many. He cannot see into the cells, for they have heavy doors with only small barred windows to see out of.

Occasionally, though, there are wide open areas with narrow windows along the top of the wall to let in light over sections of brick with manacles bolted to the walls, and sometimes rusted chains. In a few of these areas are the still-smoldering remains of chained skeletons, their grinning skulls complete with sharp fangs.

Seeing him looking, the hooded man says, “Unfortunately, not every vampire is fit to be controlled. The more stubborn ones are taken care of by the dawn.”

Vampires don’t burst into flame in sunlight, so to die by it is a slow and agonizing death. Keith looks away from the skulls where flesh and hair still clings. “How poetic,” he whispers.

Shiro’s cell is deep underground. Keith tries to keep track of their path through the cells, but everything looks the same. It’s a relief when the hooded man finally stops in front of a cell, one guarded by two men who look at them with matching scowls. One man has a mole just above his lip, while the other is missing his left eye. They look as if they’ve been here a long time – the pay must be good.

“Lord Shirogane has a visitor,” the hooded man says.

Mole grunts. “Priests said no visitors. He isn’t tame; attacked an auctioneer.”

“Yes, I am well aware, as is his visitor, who came from the Red Room. But he wishes to purchase him, nonetheless.”

Missing Eye folds his arms. “That so?”

“Yes,” Keith says, stepping forward and pulling the wad of bank notes from his pocket. All the men’s eyes go wide. “Thirteen hundred pounds, was it?”

“Who let this spoiled child in?” Mole mutters to his companion, just as something stirs within the cell. They all fall silent as chains rattle and a figure shifts in the shadows, a faint glow visible through the barred window on the door. Shiro’s growl is low and unfamiliar, as hate-filled as his eyes.

“I want this one,” Keith repeats, narrowing his eyes and gesturing impatiently to the cell. Shiro stares from glowing golden slits, his growls rumbling through the prison. “Let me in. I have the payment.”

The guards exchange looks. “You cannot just go into the cell,” the hooded man warns with obvious alarm. “You could be ripped to shreds — at least let us restrain him fully, give him a sedative, first…”

“No.” Keith’s hands curl into fists. “There will be no _restraints._ He was already sedated when they removed him from the Red Room. Let me in. _”_

“Oh, why not, let the boy have a go if he wants to die so badly,” Missing Eye exclaims. “Save us the trouble of finding the fang a meal, at least!” He laughs, but Keith knows he isn’t joking. These men do not care what happens to him, as long as they get their money. That’s why Keith knows they’ll let him in.

He hands over the bank notes and raises an eyebrow. Missing Eye chuckles again, and Mole joins him.

Sure enough, a few moments later, the hooded man throws up his hands and strides towards the door with the keys. “Go on, then, sir,” he snaps. “But don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

“Thank you,” Keith says as the key turns in the lock. Inside, Shiro’s chains rattle. “Some privacy would be much appreciated.”

“Let him die in peace,” Mole chortles, handing him a skeleton key with a flourish. “Enjoy, stranger, the fang is all yours.”

They let him in only after Missing Eye has shortened Shiro’s chain, forcing him away from the door. They keep the chain short as Keith steps inside and the door thuds shut, plunging him into darkness, broken only by glaring golden eyes. Keith takes off his mask.

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, mask falling to the cobblestones. “It’s me. Are you alright? Can you understand me?”

A low growl rumbles through the cell, increasing in volume the closer Keith gets to him. White fangs glint in warning. “I know they hurt you,” he adds, softer, “and I am so sorry I wasn’t there. But I am here now, Shiro. And I am going to get you out of here. I promise. But I need you to – to play a game, for me. Can you do that?”

Shiro’s growl cuts off abruptly. Keith barely breathes. “Shiro?” he whispers.

Then he hears the chain, dragging over the floor – slack. Those bastards lengthened the chain.

Keith scrambles backwards, but it’s too late. Shiro lunges at him, and Keith does not scream, he refuses to, because Shiro is _not_ a monster to be frightened of. _Shiro_ is afraid, here in this dark cage where these awful people have done awful things to him.

Afraid, and hungry.

His fangs puncture Keith’s neck in a burst of quick-sharp pain followed by a dull throb of prickling, heated agony – it’s his venom, and Keith’s felt that before, but this is far too much of it. Keith’s head spins; he feels himself going limp faster than ever, the vampire’s heavy body crushing him to the stone floor, the wicked claws of his right hand ripping through his brocade vest. “Shiro,” Keith gasps wetly, “Takashi, _please –”_

Shiro isn’t listening. He’s feeding ravenously, Keith’s blood pouring down his chin and from the corners of his mouth in rivulets, making no attempt to lick the wound shut or heal the punctured artery.

He never bites arteries, usually – only veins, because the risk of bleeding out is much lower. But Keith thinks Shiro is beyond caring whether his prey lives or dies. He’s in full survival mode. The Order made him this way, Keith knows – and if he were to die here, like this, he could never blame Shiro for it.

But Keith doesn’t want to die here, like this.

Keith closes his eyes. He doesn’t know if this is even possible, but he has to try. In his bleary, fading mind, he remembers how it feels when Shiro thralls him. He remembers falling into darkness, welcoming it. He remembers how their voices sound, their thoughts, two parts of a perfect harmony.

It may just be blood-loss delirium, but Keith thinks he can hear something, feel something like Shiro’s thrall...or perhaps a new thrall, yet one that feels familiar, innate. The cosmic brilliance flickers madly, this time, nothing like its usual slow, glowing pulses. Keith is falling into an endless, gaping maw of torn space, from which there is no escape.

But he refuses to vanish into its depths, fighting the sickening drag downwards. The momentum slows. He falls as if floating, suspended between the swirling light and smooth darkness. _I know you are here, my love,_ Keith says to the stars. _Come back to me._

He’s getting colder, losing sensation in his limbs and fingertips, slipping into numbness. Still, he refuses to let go, clinging to the last thread of starlight desperately. _Please,_ he gasps into nothingness, _Shiro, please._

The starlight snaps, and Keith plummets like a stone.

The darkness around him is soft, warm. The cold recedes. In the middle of the darkness, reaching out to him, is a figure, somehow darker than the nothing, a shadow’s shadow. _Keith?_

_Shiro,_ Keith says, hardly a whisper – his voice is almost gone. _I knew you would find me._ With the last of his strength, he stretches out his hand, fingertips translucent and filled with supernovae. Shiro takes his hand, squeezes once, and then it all goes black.

And from the blackness, something stirs, rises, and bares its teeth.

*

It is like awakening the day after a night of heavy indulgence in drink and drug, except that he does not awake in his bed with Keith curled at his side, but chained in a dark, damp cell with Keith’s pale and motionless body beneath him, crumpled in a puddle of his own blood.

Shiro doesn’t think. He just lifts Keith’s neck to his mouth again, licking the punctures shut, assessing the damage as calmly as he can – Keith’s pulse beats under his tongue, but it is too slow. He is going to die, unless drastic measures are taken, and even then...

Shiro will turn him if he must, but he doesn’t want to do so against Keith’s will, and not here, in this place, where they will take Keith from him before the transformation is complete. But what else can he do? He is chained with a silver-luxite alloy that makes breaking free impossible – Shiro falters.

Metal glints at Keith’s hip. In disbelief, he plucks the key from Keith’s belt. It is a perfect fit in the keyhole which keeps him chained, and at last, the collar opens. Shiro catches it before its loud clang on the stone floor can alert the humans he can smell outside, though not directly in front of the door.

Shiro rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and looks down at Keith again. He cannot look at the bloodied, still human for too long, or he will get distracted. Keith cannot afford his distraction right now. Right now, Shiro needs to find an exit for them both.

Keith had said something before Shiro bit him – he asked Shiro to play a game for him. Taking in Keith’s opulent appearance and the feathered mask discarded by the door, he thinks he understands. These men, the Order, caged and bound him in order to sell him off to the highest bidder. The game Keith was referring to must have been filling those roles, of master and pet. But Keith cannot walk, much less be his master, in this state.

Yet, Keith... _thralled_ him, or at least initiated a thrall state between them. Didn’t he? Shiro does not know how that is possible, just as he does not know how it is possible that Keith is still breathing after Shiro punctured his carotid artery. Any other human would surely be dead.

Again, he does not have time to puzzle over this, nor to devise any clever games. He has a score to settle, anyway.

Shiro opens the door carefully, holding Keith with one arm, half-slung over his shoulder. When he shifts his weight, though, something sharp jabs into his chest, burning slightly. Shiro reaches into Keith’s bloodied cloak, his heart leaping as his fingers close around a leather-wrapped hilt.

Of course Keith brought his blade. Shiro loves him.

The guards’ backs are turned. Shiro’s nostrils flare. They’re both armed, but with silver, not luxite. He hefts the blade in his free hand and approaches in a slow, steady stalk before pouncing. The first guard gets stabbed directly in the spinal cord, through the back of the neck. The other’s throat is ripped open, leaving him gurgling on the ground before he can sound the alarm.

Shiro ignores their bodies and wipes the blood from his mouth in disgust. They taste like fear, and as satisfying as that is, it isn’t appetizing to him. Not after Keith.

If Keith had his blade, Shiro realizes then, he could have fought back. He could have stabbed Shiro in the heart, ended it then and there. But he had surrendered. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Shiro, even then.

Shiro holds him tighter. “I will get us out of here, beloved,” he whispers. “I will not allow you to die, I _cannot._ I swear it.”

Then, to his utter disbelief, Keith’s breath deepens, and his eyes flutter open; he shifts in Shiro’s grip. “Takashi,” he whispers back. “Beloved…”

Shiro glances to and fro, then ducks into a side-tunnel to set Keith down, looking him over with wide eyes. By all rights, Keith should be dead; he certainly shouldn’t be awake and speaking so soon after nearly being drained dry. But the color is already returning to his cheeks, and Shiro has always known there was something peculiar about his Keith, but this is on a different level. Not just peculiar, but _powerful._ Shiro brushes the hair from Keith’s eyes and kneels before him where he lies slumped against the wall.

“Keith,” he says. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” Keith says, and cracks a faint smile. “You?”

“Angry,” Shiro replies, and Keith’s smile falls, replaced by an expression of grim agreement. “But much as I would like to, I think it would be unwise to murder our way out of here.”

“Yes…” Keith trails off, then rubs at his eyes, shaking himself before bracing a hand on the wall and trying to stagger to his feet. “My mask...where is it?”

Shiro curses softly. “I left it in the cell. Do we need it?” He steadies Keith with an arm around his waist, and Keith slumps into his side. “Will you be able to walk?”

“With...difficulty,” Keith grumbles. “But I must walk, if we are to get out of here. Doubtless there will have to be a few murders along the way. I trust you can take care of that?”

Shiro nods. “I can.” He holds out the luxite blade to Keith. “You should take this – just in case.”

“Alright.” Keith takes his blade with shaky fingers and inhales deeply. “I will need a mask if we’re going to just walk out...but not necessarily the mask I had before.” His eyes glint as he meets Shiro’s gaze. “There should be other guests in these cells.”

“We’ll just _borrow_ one of theirs,” Shiro agrees. “You’re certain you can make it?”

“No, not certain at all.” Keith’s voice is a wavering thread, and his eyelids are heavy. “But – we have to try. I’m getting you out, Shiro.”

For a moment, Shiro wants to object, wants to tell Keith that he should let Shiro handle it, but then he remembers how he left Keith on the night he was captured. He remembers how he laid bloodied and aching in the cold cell afterwards, terrified that those would be his last words to Keith, scolding words of condescension and reproach. He had whispered apologies in that cell until the guards forced him into silence.

Now, he cups Keith’s face in his hands. Keith’s eyes widen, confused, but he leans into it without hesitation when Shiro kisses him, quick and chaste but with every bit of tenderness that wells up in him whenever he looks at Keith. Keith has enough strength to cling to him, and Shiro takes that as a good sign.

When he pulls back, he whispers, “I love you. I’m sorry I locked you in, that night. I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have spoken to you in such a way, I should have just _listened_ to you –”

Keith kisses him, cutting him off abruptly, and unlike Shiro he does not keep it chaste, licking hungrily into Shiro’s mouth and sinking a hand into his hair. He tastes like iron and anger. “You should not have done those things,” Keith whispers fiercely as he pauses to breathe, shallow and labored, “but I could never blame you for them, Shiro. I was not upset with you. Only afraid.” He searches Shiro’s eyes, his own frantic. “I feared I might never see you again. I fear they would hurt you, and I would be unable to reach you.”

Shiro kisses him again, firm and as greedy as it is sweet. “You have me now,” he murmurs.

“Yes,” Keith breathes. “And I will not let anyone take you from me.”

It’s then that Shiro swears Keith’s eyes gleam with more than just determination. They almost look gold, gone so fast Shiro could have imagined it in the flickering lamplight. But vampires have excellent vision.

He says nothing of it; Keith does not need more on his mind. “Nor will I,” Shiro promises, and steadies him again as Keith’s knees threaten to buckle. “Tell me if you feel faint.”

Keith grimaces, but nods, and they set off into the darkness together.

*

She creeps along the edges of the rooftops, peering down into the courtyard filled with masked guests, her eyes searching frantically for a face she has not seen in far too many years, but a face she could never forget. The blade at her hip burns with near-painful heat, searing into her skin even through her thick black belt.

It has not burned this way in ten years, not since the Ripper dared to harm her son in a Whitechapel alley. She had stopped him from finishing the deed in time for her son to run away, stronger and faster than he should have been after such an encounter. It had been bewildering when he ran not to the orphanage, but to the home of the orphanage’s patron, a vampire lord.

Krolia had nearly betrayed the Blades and her vows to them that day, so great was her desire to sweep her son away from those steps and the man with silver hair who opened the door to him. But there had been no fear in Keith’s eyes nor scent when he looked up at the vampire named Lord Shirogane.

From her hiding place on the rooftop, shrouded in smog, she had watched with a tilted head the way Keith stepped forward, his manner both desperate and impertinent. She had also watched the way Shirogane regarded him, with lifted brows and a curious light in his silver eyes.

His gaze had lingered on the ugly wound on Keith’s neck, and Krolia’s hand had tightened around her blade, but to her surprise the vampire quickly looked away, something like disgust in his expression. That much, they could agree on. The Ripper was a disgusting creature and Krolia only regretted not being able to kill it herself. At least she had scared it away from Keith.

That first conversation between Keith and Shirogane was short and to the point, from what she could hear upon her hidden perch. She saw the shock in Keith’s face as Shiro named his wages, and drew in a sharp breath, herself, immediately suspicious of the vampire lord’s generosity. Lord Shirogane was not a complete stranger – he had a bloody history, one that the Blades were well aware of. Krolia knew that it was not entirely fair to judge someone based on their past deeds, but it did not make her trust Shirogane in the slightest.

But when all was said and done, her son disappeared through Shirogane’s doors, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Krolia had watched the house anxiously for months afterward, and had kept a close eye on her blade, but it never once heated and flared with violet light as it did whenever Keith was in danger, as it had when the Ripper attacked him. In fact, she swore the metal had never been cooler.

Still, she needed to _know_ that her son was safe there. It would not be the first time a man, vampire or not, had taken on a boy as his ‘valet’ only to use him for a far different purpose.

But when she finally did catch sight of them through Shirogane’s bedroom window one night, it was not the sight she had feared, not at all. The window was cracked open, so she could hear the faint strains of their conversation as Keith walked in with a tray of tea. There were two cups, and as she watched, he poured the tea for them both before sitting down with Shirogane on the small settee near the window.

Shirogane set down the tea after a long sip and handed Keith something — a book. “Since you finished the last one so quickly,” he said.

Keith took the book with a small but genuine smile. _“Moby Dick?”_ he read, and weighed the hefty volume in his hands. “Is this a test of my reading speed, sir? It feels like it.”

Shirogane chuckled. “It is not a short book, to be certain. I do hope it will entertain you for a while, and it does feature some excellent illustrations, though it _is_ more ‘dour’ than Allura’s recommendations...in my defense, it is quite hard to top _Arabian Nights._ If this one is not to your liking, there is no shortage of others. Thankfully, there is always plenty to read in the world.”

Keith looked at him, a long and unflinching gaze that made Krolia wonder about what precisely her son thought of this vampire lord. He did not seem to harbor any animosity, at least. “Is that how you keep yourself entertained over the centuries, sir? Reading?”

Shirogane gazed back at him, thoughtful. “It is one of the ways, yes. I also enjoy sketching, though it has often proven to be a more frustrating pastime than the escape that books provide. I also enjoy languages.”

Keith tilted his head. “How many do you know, sir?”

“Many,” Shirogane replied with a hint of both mischief and pride.

“I don’t believe you,” Keith retorted, a clear challenge. Krolia gawked. This boy was a far cry from the wary, quiet child she had seen in the past. In Shirogane’s care, he was transformed into something sharper, brighter, more sure.

Shirogane hummed, amused, not angry. _“A diabolo, qui est simia dei.”_

Keith blinked. “What does that mean?”

“Where God has a church, the Devil will have his chapel,” Shirogane replied.

“What does _that_ mean?”

“Whatever you’d like it to.”

“I don’t think I believe in the Devil and all that, sir,” Keith said.

Shirogane leaned back against the settee. “Then you’re a clever boy.”

Keith kept staring at the vampire lord. “Is the Devil real?”

“Why ask me?” Shirogane countered. “Do you think me a demon?”

“No...but if you aren’t a demon, then where did you come from?”

“If not from Hell, you mean?” Shirogane’s mouth twists. “Keith, your guess is as good as mine. Though I was human, once. A long time ago, but human nonetheless, in the beginning.”

“Oh.” Keith relaxed visibly at that, and drank his tea. “I don’t think you’re from Hell,” he added.

Shirogane sipped his own tea, and Krolia saw him smile against the rim of the cup. “Thank you, Keith,” he said.

Keith nodded. “You’re welcome, sir.”

Krolia left. She had remained close, but not too close, for she knew now that Keith was in good hands. This was confirmed time and time again. Lord Shirogane was an old vampire, though not nearly as old as some, but old enough to be a close friend of Princess Allura, and well-acquainted with the Midnight Court.

They were powerful allies, and once it became clear that Shirogane intended to protect her son, not exploit him, Krolia rested easy knowing that few vampires would cross such a man as Shirogane. The one time the Ripper himself had tried, Shirogane had — according to Blade reports — put a quick and brutal end to him.

But perhaps tonight he has made a new enemy? Krolia scowls down again at the crowded courtyard. She doesn’t like this, not one bit – the Order of the Golden Dawn is not her specialty, but Kolivan has told her enough to be deeply wary, and she has a faint inkling that, as of late, they have been more bold, and pose more of a threat than usual. Why would Keith be here? All of the guests are human...but Keith is not among them. No, the heat of the blade leads her somewhere deeper, beneath the masquerade, underground.

She finds the entrance to the sewers easily enough and slips inside, crouching in the gloom and listening carefully as she picks her way along the damp stone path. There is something terribly wrong here, a thick sour taste in the air which makes her want to gag. As she walks, this taste begins to coalesce into a more distinct flavor: fear. Viscous and choking, it floods her senses, and she has to pause to collect herself, her own fear curling in her gut as she again presses forward, vainly following the blade’s unseen compass.

She would know if Keith had died, of that much she is certain. But she also knows there are many fates worse than death, and steels herself for what she might find as the light flares brighter and her palm begins to redden with its warmth.

She hears voices up ahead and ducks around the corner, eyes searching the gloom for their source. When she finds it, she stiffens in disbelief. There are two people, a man and a woman, both in gaudy party attire and ornate masks, and they reek of sex, but not with each other – with a third, left far behind, a vampire whose scent is so tangled in terror and anger and _hunger_ that Krolia has to take a moment to steady herself against the onslaught of _feeling._

Kolivan had not told her about this aspect of the Order...her heart clenches with cold fear. What if they have discovered Keith’s secret? What if they have hurt him, here in this dark, wrong place? If that is so...Krolia cannot promise she will not raze this place to the ground, Blade oaths be damned.

She must steel herself. She lets the anger sharpen, hone into something useful, until the red haze of rage lifts from her vision enough to make sense of what lays before her.

Once she’s able, she focuses on the voices’ words.

“ – better than last time, far better, wouldn’t you agree, dear?”

The woman waves a gloved hand. There is a spot of blood on it – her own; her neck is spotted with punctures. Who _are_ these people? “Oh, I don’t know, it was good enough. I thought it got a bit rough, at the end.”

“But that’s the fun of it, dear! Next time – I say, did you hear that?”

The woman never has a chance to reply, because in an instant, she’s thrown to the ground, her neck torn open with such force it almost brings her whole head off. Krolia stares, her shock tripling as she recognizes the attacker – it’s Lord Shirogane, dressed in dark rags with stark red burns over his flesh, around his neck and on his wrists. Then, from the shadows where he had leapt from, there staggers a second figure. _Keith._

The man shouts, rushing towards Lord Shirogane as he lifts his bloodied face from the woman’s mutilated neck, but he never makes contact. Krolia catches him first, twisting his neck ‘til it cracks in a clean break, and he topples to the ground as dead as his companion.

She and Shirogane stare at each other for a long moment before they both turn to Keith. He looks like death, his eyes glazed over as a thrall’s might be, and there’s blood all down his torn party clothes, his own blood, and silvery puncture marks over his carotid artery. He only smells of one vampire.

Krolia whirls on Shirogane, putting herself between the vampire lord and her son with a hiss. She may only be a century and a half-old dhampir, but like _Hell_ she’s going to let Shirogane near Keith without a proper explanation.

Shirogane’s lips curl back in a low, warning growl. “Go,” he says, no, _orders,_ and the word sends a shiver down her spine. He expects her to obey, and she feels the golden tug of his thrall wash over her, but it only makes her hiss louder in refusal. The Blades’ masks have safeguards against such things.

Keith stands still behind her, his breathing ragged. “Who are you?” he whispers.

She turns to him, still keeping an eye on Shirogane, who watches her with a ceaseless glare. In reply, Krolia holds out her blade, the hilt glowing a bright violet at being reunited with the one it is bound to. Shirogane starts forward, but Keith holds up a trembling hand, and to her surprise...the vampire lord stops, reluctant but obedient.

Keith takes out his own, matching blade – a much smaller knife, but powerful nonetheless. “Who _are_ you?” he repeats, voice trembling this time.

She straightens upright, and wonders if he would recognize her without her mask on, see his face reflected in her own. It does not matter, anyway. “A friend,” she simply says, though she longs to say more. “I work for an organization called the Blade of Marmora.” At this, Shirogane’s eyes narrow. _Ah._ So he _does_ know, or at least _thinks_ he knows, what the Blade is capable of. “I was sent to rescue you.” A white lie, really.

“Why?” Keith asks, eyes wide. This catches her off-guard. “Why does this – this _Blade of Marmora_ care about _me?”_

Krolia swallows. “You are – a valuable asset, to us,” she tells him. Not a lie, not exactly. “Your well-being is in our best interest.”

“Get away from him,” Shirogane growls, and takes a step forward. It’s no idle threat.

Krolia turns to him. “No,” she says. He balks. “You’ve bitten him, nearly drained him. Don’t lie to me. Have you thralled him, also?”

Genuine distress flickers over Shirogane’s face. “It was an accident,” Keith says, and steps out from behind her, going to Shirogane’s side before she can intercede. The vampire lord’s right arm, twisting and monstrous with Alfor’s powerful magic, wraps tight around Keith’s shaking shoulders. “He didn’t – mean to…” Keith’s head droops, and he blinks, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“He is not thralled,” Shirogane adds firmly. “But he is suffering from severe blood loss. He needs a doctor and rest, not an interrogation.”

“No,” Krolia agrees, “that will have to come later. Follow me. There is a way out, through the sewers.”

“Katie and Lance are still at the party,” Keith croaks, clinging to Shirogane’s side with a weak, pale grip.

“Are they human?” Krolia asks. He nods jerkily. “Then they will be fine,” she says. “This is one of the Order’s nests, is it not?” Only they could concoct a place as sick as this one.

Shirogane eyes her. “Yes.”

“That would explain a few things,” she mutters, and starts back the way she came. “Come.”

Shirogane hesitates, Keith limp and ashen against him. “What business does the Blade have with Keith, really?” His voice is low but demanding.

Krolia is in no mood for his demands – she’s the one who makes the demands, here. “What business do _you_ have with Keith?” she retorts. “Follow me and have a chance at saving him, or stay here, and his blood will be on your already rather red hands, Lord Shirogane.”

Needless to say, he follows her out.

*

By the time they emerge from the sewers, it is too close to dawn for comfort, though it is a great relief to see the sky after days underground. Shiro takes only a moment to admire it before focusing with wary uncertainty on their strange guide.

He’s heard of the Blade of Marmora, of course – every vampire has. It is a name rarely spoken aloud, however: a bogeyman, of sorts. They’re vampire hunters, that’s the long and short of it. They only hunt the vampires who need to be hunted, though there is some debate about where that line lies. Shiro is fairly certain he was on their list at least once, but he’s still alive, so they must have changed their mind at some point.

He doesn’t know what Keith’s relation to the Blade is, however. There is no denying that Keith’s blade is strange, made of rare luxite and with an odd shape not found in any knives Shiro has seen in London...and he always keeps the hilt wrapped. Shiro wonders with a growing apprehension what he would find if he unwrapped the hilt. Would it be the same glowing violet symbol their guide’s blade bears? And if so...why? How?

There’s something familiar in the way she moves, the masked Blade who leads them over the slick rooftops and through the early morning smog. Her scent is that of a dhampir, he thinks, yet it’s as if he’s smelled it a thousand times before. Her face is masked, and concealed under her hood besides, but – Shiro holds Keith tighter.

He’s now barely clinging to consciousness in Shiro’s arms, head lolling onto his shoulder. He’s human...but he should have died within minutes when Shiro bit him, and he hasn’t. He’s human, but he can resist even a vampire lord’s thrall. He’s human, but he can thrall vampires. He’s human, but – but Shiro doesn’t know as much about Keith as he thought he did.

The Blade has stopped. They’re perched above a house on the edge of Hyde Park, Shiro’s house, and that dark mask faces him expectantly. “Who are you?” Shiro asks her, quiet, as Keith’s eyes fall shut and he goes limp, his breaths tickling Shiro’s ear.

She shakes her head. “You know,” she murmurs. “Don’t you?”

“All of the Blades are dhampirs,” Shiro whispers.

There’s a movement in the shadow of her mask, a slow blink. Her eyes gleam a bright indigo that Shiro would know anywhere. “Yes,” she says.

Shiro doesn’t say anything.

“He cannot be turned,” she adds. Shiro’s throat tightens with an emotion he has felt so often that he almost doesn’t feel it anymore: grief. “He should not even exist.”

“Is that why you abandoned him?” Shiro asks, sharper than is fair, perhaps. But _this_ is not fair. Life is not fair.

He doesn’t need to see her face to know he’s said the wrong thing. “Keith is both my greatest success and my worst failure,” she says, turning away. “I never should have let him walk through your doors on that day eleven years past...but I did, and now the apple has not fallen far from the tree.” Her scoff is quiet, pained.

“And what of Keith’s father?” Shiro asks her.

“He was mortal,” she says simply. “As is his son – more or less.” She steps closer and points to the house. “Go home. I will take care of Keith from here.”

Shiro holds Keith tighter, stubborn, even as his heart crumples in on itself. _He cannot be turned._ His claws dig into Keith’s flesh through his extravagant party clothes. “I’m not going anywhere. Where Keith goes, I go.”

She growls – the sound is more frustrated than threatening. Then she turns sharply, away from the house, and says, “There is no time for me to argue with you. He is dying. Follow me, then, quickly.”

Shiro follows.

He follows her over the dark rooftops, fleeing from the rising sun as its light casts in a slow but steady glow over the city. She leads him far from the city center, far from the stately manors of Hyde Park, past the dull ribbon of the winding Thames, through the tangled alleys of Whitechapel, to the outskirts, around the roaring factories and the noxious black smoke.

He follows her so far that he can feel the warmth leaving Keith’s limbs, and clutches him harder, closer, gripped by a terror unlike anything he has ever felt before. “Keith,” he whispers against the cool shell of his ear, “beloved, stay awake. Please. _Please.”_

Keith does not move nor reply, but Shiro feels the faint feather of his breath against his cheek, and hears the weak _thud...thud...thud_ of his heart.

The masked Blade turns to look at him, then points to the street below. They stand before a large, apparently abandoned factory. There are no passersby in sight, but a single plume of pale gray smoke drifts from one of the factory’s chimneys, and there are lights on in the narrow windows. “Here,” she says. “I will warn you – you will not be welcomed in.”

“I’m going in,” Shiro retorts. “I need to stay with him.” He separated them once; he refuses to do so again, not when Keith is so vulnerable. Keith needs him, and Shiro cannot abandon him. If it were Keith in his place, he knows Keith would do the same.

She growls again, but leaps down wordlessly to the street, and Shiro follows, stumbling a little from his exhaustion and the weight of Keith in his arms. He’s well-fed, at least, a shameful thought – the taste of Keith’s blood still lingers on his tongue, rich and sweet and alive. Shiro trembles. If he has killed Keith, he will never forgive himself.

They are met at the factory door by three imposing figures, also masked, save for their leader, who stares at Shiro with piercing golden eyes under a heavy brow. His right eye is marked by the silvery slash of an old scar. “What is the meaning of this?” he demands, addressing the masked Blade.

She steps forward, placing a hand on Keith’s limp arm. “This is my son,” she says, and a ripple of astonishment goes through the other Blades. Shiro already knew it, but hearing her say it directly shakes him, nonetheless. “He is dying. He needs our help.”

“Krolia, you _dare,”_ the unmasked Blade starts, but in one swift movement Krolia tears off her mask and bares her teeth at him, and Shiro stares with the other Blades, because – she looks so terribly like Keith; it’s no wonder she kept her mask on, for there can be no mistaking it. Her features are sharper, more angular and severe, but her eyes are Keith’s, and even the way her dark hair curls around her face shares an eerie similarity with her son’s.

“Yes, I dare,” she snarls, “and you may berate me for it all you wish later, but if my son dies on our doorstep, I will never forgive you for it, Kolivan.”

The lead Blade, Kolivan, stares at her, eyes flicking from her to Keith to Shiro, resting on Shiro. “Fine. Hand over the boy, Lord Shirogane.”

Shiro makes no move to do so. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he says.

Kolivan’s lip curls. He looks, a little desperately, to Krolia. “You know outsiders, much less vampire lords, are forbidden –”

Krolia’s clawed hand flexes. “So is infighting and attempted murder, but Kolivan, I will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to get my son to safety here. Do not let it come to that.”

Kolivan’s brow lowers. “I see.” He pauses, then slowly steps aside, and gestures for the other Blades to do the same. “Quickly.” He glances again at Shiro, his expression cold and guarded. The feeling is mutual. “You should not be here, and Krolia, we will have words about this later.”

“I’m sure we will,” Krolia retorts, and marches into the factory with Shiro close behind. Keith’s breaths are shallow and labored and fading, fading. Shiro thinks Kolivan is still glaring at him, but he has eyes only for Keith.

“It will be alright,” Shiro whispers to him, hefting Keith up more securely in his embrace. Keith makes a weak, involuntary sound, and Shiro’s heart hurts. “I’ve got you,” he promises. “I’m not letting you go.”

*

Keith awakes in bleary confusion, cold, with the rim of a cup pressed to his lips. Something has roused him – something he doesn’t quite understand. It’s a scent, sharp and metallic and warm, and then he tastes it, poured from the cup past his lips, spilling across his tongue: blood. Vampire blood.

Above and around him, voices murmur.

“No telling if it will work...but his body has rejected the blood transfusions.”

“Of course – his blood isn’t human.”

“Do you think that’s why Lord Shirogane has taken such a liking to him?”

“Silence.” Keith blinks, recognizing this voice – it’s a woman, and she sounds upset. “This _must_ work. Keith. You must drink. Slowly, now…”

Keith’s brow furrows as the warm blood slides down his throat. Cool fingers stroke his neck, coaxing him to swallow, and as they do, they touch the fresh wounds Shiro left there, as well as the old scar from the Ripper, lower on his neck, further from vital veins and arteries. Keith stiffens.

The blood in his mouth tastes suddenly vile, caustic and rotten, and he gags, coughing it up and spitting out the rest, chest heaving. He’s weak, his vision swimming in and out, but he can’t drink it. It’s not the blood he wants – no, the blood he _needs._

The voices around him swear as he splatters the ground in regurgitated blood, lashing out and knocking the cup away when they try to feed him again. “No,” Keith chokes out, his skin clammy and burning at the same time, “can’t –”

“Get another blood transfusion ready,” one of the voices commands. “He’s clearly more human than not, no wonder he won’t drink blood!”

“The blood transfusion won’t work,” the woman says quietly, leaning close. “Look at his teeth.”

“And his _eyes,”_ another voice starts, “what in the _hell –”_

Keith forces his eyes open, as wide as he can manage, staring at the circle of faces above him. They’re blurry, but fill him with panicked distress because none of them are the face he wants to see. “Shiro,” he moans, clawing at the air, _“Shiro –”_

The faces exchange looks. “He cannot be in here,” one of them starts, “Kolivan ordered –”

“Shiro!” Keith screams, or perhaps howls, as a syringe filled with red enters his vision. Keith twists away from it, nearly falling out of the bed in his haste to crawl away, towards the scent he can sense at the edges of his perception. He cannot describe the urgency he feels then as anything short of life and death. Yes – he’s dying. But he doesn’t want to, he cannot, because if he dies, he will leave Shiro behind – his mate – he cannot abandon his mate –

There’s a commotion outside the door, and Keith freezes as he hears Shiro’s voice. “Keith? Keith! What’s happening to him – _let me in –”_ The door rattles and Keith tries to reach towards it, too weak to get too far. Hands cover him, trying to hold him down, and Keith turns towards their source, hissing and jerking away like a trapped, wild thing.

“Stop moving so much, Keith, you must save your strength,” the woman whispers, pleading, but Keith cannot hear her. He keens, instead, for Shiro, straining against the bonds that hold him down. The syringe presses to his neck and Keith screeches furiously, first in indignance and then in pain as the blood floods his veins, fiery and as wrong as the blood they poured down his throat, though this blood is human, not vampire – it doesn’t matter; it’s wrong either way.

“Keith!” Shiro shouts again as Keith wails at the top of his lungs, gnashing his teeth, his own blood hot and bitter as his teeth tear at his lips – have they always been so sharp?

But the door remains closed, and Keith, too weak to even sit up, slumps back against the bloodied pillows with a defeated whimper. They’re keeping Shiro from him – Keith won’t even get to say goodbye –

“Open the door,” the woman orders, and when the others hesitate, she snaps, “now!” and then, just as Keith’s eyes are sliding reluctantly but inexorably shut, the door is flung open, and Shiro is there, before him, hurrying to his bedside, arms outstretched.

“Keith,” Shiro whispers, warm hand cupping his face, his own face pale and drawn and filled with fear, “I’m so sorry, this is my fault, oh, sweetheart…”

Keith leans into his touch with a rusty purr, his eyes cracking open, weak but beseeching. “Closer,” he begs, “Shiro, need you –”

Shiro blinks at him, shifting closer, kneeling beside the bed. “Of course,” he promises, “anything, Keith, whatever you need…” His breath hitches and he embraces Keith, and Keith’s purr strengthens, because here is what he needs: Shiro’s throat, mere inches away, all for him.

Keith leans in and _bites._

Shiro stiffens, arms tightening around him, a shocked sound escaping his lips as Keith’s fangs – not quite sharp enough to make a clean bite, but sharp enough to pierce flesh with enough pressure – slice into his neck. Shiro’s blood floods Keith’s mouth and he moans in pure relief, nestling closer, dragging Shiro to him for better access.

Distantly, he’s aware that the room around him is erupting into a cacophony of confused, elevated voices, but all of that is secondary to the taste of Shiro’s blood on his tongue. The vampire lord’s black blood stains his lips, dribbles down his chin where his awkward, frantic feeding can’t quite catch it.

Keith drinks like a starving creature, because he is one, and Shiro is the only one who can sate the hunger that has opened up like a pit in his stomach. But Shiro is still stiff, and there’s a bitter taste to his blood that shouldn’t be there – fear? Shiro is...afraid of him?

Keith pulls away at this realization with a questioning whine, the sound wet and thick. Shiro still bleeds in his wake, and Keith leans back in to gently lick the wound as clean as he can, mumbling apologies. “Sorry...I...hurt you?”

Shiro’s hand cups the back of his skull, sliding down to rest on the nape of his neck. “Oh, Keith,” Shiro whispers. “What’s happened to you?”

The room has gone quiet, suddenly, as if holding its breath. Keith holds his breath too, peering up at Shiro. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him, either, but Shiro’s expression isn’t upset or afraid. More like...awestruck.

“Does my blood help?” Shiro murmurs, stroking Keith’s hair. Keith feels so safe. So well-cared for. “Does it make you stronger?”

“Yes,” Keith gasps, nuzzling back into Shiro’s neck, “can I – please – I need more –”

“Take as much as you need,” Shiro tells him. “As much as you need, Keith.”

Keith gives a happy little trill and latches back on, fitting his newfound fangs to the ragged wound to coax more blood from it. As he feeds, he feels the tension slowly fade from Shiro, the vampire lord’s arms settling heavy around him. Keith makes pleased little sounds as he feeds, and he doesn’t realize he’s holding Shiro’s shoulder in an iron grip until muscle shifts under his grasping palm. Reluctantly, Keith pulls away to peer up at Shiro again. He has to make certain that Shiro is alright.

There’s a distinctly grayish hue to the vampire lord’s skin, but he offers Keith a faint smile and pets his hair. “How are you feeling?” he whispers.

What a question. Keith feels...something. Something different. Keith mouths absently at Shiro’s throat and leans back with a sigh. “Powerful,” he admits.

The voices in the room speak up again. “Krolia,” a low, masculine voice says with palpable horror, “what have you done?”

“I don’t know…I don’t know what this is.”

Keith becomes distinctly aware that he is being stared at — and so is Shiro. He lifts his head from the vampire lord’s throat with a low growl as he stares back at the strangers in the room with him. Except — Keith freezes. One of the strangers has his face, or at least, a face very much like his own. She takes a step forward, closer to the bed, closer to Shiro. Keith gives a warning growl.

“Hush, Keith,” Shiro says. “It’s alright. This is Krolia...your mother.”

Keith's eyes widen, though the full meaning of the words doesn’t quite land in his hazy mind. He stares up at her, as she stares down at him. “You’re not human,” she says, a bit dazed. “We thought — your father was so certain —”

Another stranger steps forward, this one large and male with a scar over one eye and pale hair which marks him as an old vampire — no, a dhampir, Keith decides. He tilts his head at the stranger, who is eyeing him with a mixture of apprehension and disbelief.

“What _are_ you?” the stranger demands. Keith bristles at once, pressing closer to Shiro. “You’re not a human, you’re not a vampire, and you’re not a dhampir. You shouldn’t even exist.”

Shiro’s arms tighten around him. The woman, Krolia, his mother, bares her teeth at the other dhampir. “Yet he does exist, Kolivan, so we must discover what he is —”

“What is there to discover?” Kolivan hisses, gesturing to Keith. “He looks like a human. He has, according to you and Shirogane, lived over two decades as a human. He is immune to luxite and sunlight, as humans are. But he can survive mortal wounds, derives power from consuming vampiric blood, has begun to exhibit decidedly nonhuman characteristics, and has some _codependent bond_ with a vampire lord — whatever he is, he’s dangerous, and we don’t know what he could become, what else he might be able to do.”

“We are not hunting my son,” Krolia says. Her eyes are flat and unyielding. “He was on the verge of death. His body is attempting to survive. Perhaps that has triggered this...change.”

Kolivan’s lip curls. “And now he is feeding from a vampire lord, and it is changing him further – look, his eyes have become more yellow just in the span of this conversation!”

Shiro makes a low sound and looks to Krolia. “I thought you said he could not be turned.”

“It should not be possible,” she mutters, “and you have not drained him of blood, he is not on that threshold between life and death that is required for a turning...yet he seeks out your blood as if you were his sire already.”

“Fledglings don’t do _this_ with their sires,” Kolivan growls. “They drink what is needed to be turned, and then they hunger for human blood! This – this behavior is abnormal.”

Krolia turns to Shiro. “How much of your blood has he taken?”

Shiro swallows; Keith can feel his throat bob against Keith’s cheek. “A great deal,” Shiro admits. “More than is needed to turn. But he hasn’t turned – at least, I don’t think –”

“More,” Keith coos, bored by the conversation, nosing back into the crook of Shiro’s neck. “Need more…”

“He’s going to drain you dry,” Kolivan says.

Keith breaks away from Shiro to snarl at this in protest. “I won’t hurt Shiro!” He whirls back to Shiro, eyes wide. “Did I hurt you?”

Shiro weakly pats his back. “No, shh, Keith. It’s alright.” Keith purrs, relieved, rubbing his face against Shiro’s jaw and arching happily when Shiro embraces him again. His rubbing quickly turns into gnawing again, so desperate is he for more of that taste – Shiro’s blood makes him feel powerful, yes, but it makes him feel good, too – warm and tingling and blissful all over. Keith is starting to wish they didn’t have an audience.

“Someone fetch some human blood,” Kolivan mutters. “Quickly, now!”

“That’s hardly necessary, Kolivan,” Krolia starts.

He glares at her. “Don’t,” he warns. “I’m not letting your progeny step one foot outside of this place until we know he isn’t likely to murder the first human he sees.”

One of the other dhampirs returns with a vial of red liquid and uncorks it. Keith pauses in his licking of Shiro’s throat, lifting his head and blinking at the vial. He can smell it – strong and metallic, some kind of blood, yet utterly unlike the addicting ambrosia that is Shiro’s black blood. The dhampir cautiously brings the vial closer, and Keith’s nose wrinkles. “What is that?” he demands. “Smells bad.”

Kolivan steps forward, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean, it smells bad? You don’t want to drink it?”

Keith eyes him. “Why would I want that?”

“It’s human blood,” Krolia tells him.

Keith blinks more rapidly. “Okay,” he says. “I don’t...want that…”

“What do you want, Keith?” Shiro whispers.

Keith peers up at him. Isn’t it obvious? “You.”

Kolivan makes a sound of exasperated fury. Krolia just looks thoughtful. “We tried giving him vampiric blood when the blood transfusions failed, because it can have healing properties in dire circumstances,” she muses. “But he wouldn’t accept it – only Lord Shirogane’s.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Kolivan exclaims. He turns his glare upon Shiro. “Is this some trickery of your doing, hm? Why is this human – or not-quite-human bonded to you so strangely?”

Shiro starts to protest and Krolia looks at him in open suspicion. Keith frowns. He doesn’t understand why everyone is so confused. “Because Shiro is my mate,” he says.

A beat of silence, then,

“...what,” Shiro says.

“What?” Krolia whispers.

_“WHAT!”_ Kolivan demands.

Keith falters at the sight of Shiro’s bewilderment. His heart stutters. “You are,” he insists, and then, uncertainly, “aren’t you?”

“Keith, you’re not in your right mind,” Shiro tells him, still looking stricken, still looking at Keith like he’s just grown a second head. “We should...we should talk about this later, when you’re well.”

Keith slowly, painfully pulls away from Shiro and sinks back down to the bed, dejected. “Oh,” he says. His head spins. It was hard to think, before, but Shiro brought clarity, and now...now, Keith doesn’t know what’s happening. Why didn’t Shiro say it back? He whimpers softly.

“Since when are vampires taking humans as their mates?” Kolivan hisses, stepping closer to the bed, into Shiro’s space. Keith tenses, his hands curling into fists. “Or is that just a prettier word for ‘thrall’?”

“That’s not –” Shiro exhales. “It’s complicated.”

“Explain it simply, or I’ll ask less nicely,” Kolivan warns, and Keith sees only a threat when the dhampir moves again towards Shiro, and with a quickness Keith never knew he was capable of, he surges up from the bed and lunges for Kolivan’s throat.

“Keith!” Krolia cries, but Keith can’t hear her. Teeth affixed in Kolivan’s neck, he tears, spitting out flesh and blood – Kolivan’s blood isn’t like Shiro’s, it isn’t what he needs, what he craves, but something in his hindbrain tells him that it’s _power, strength, sustenance,_ all the same.

Keith doesn’t get much of a chance to feed, though, because he’s ripped away by hands on every side, and slammed back against the bed, wrists pinned. Keith snarls, stilling only when Shiro’s pale face comes into his vision. But Shiro doesn’t say anything: just stares at him.

Keith’s done something wrong. But he was just protecting Shiro…

“Krolia...your son is a creature who hunts vampires,” Kolivan gasps, clutching his bloodied neck.

Krolia stares at Keith as Shiro does, though in her gaze there’s something else – apology. She plucks something from the bedside table, and leans over the bed, her hand moving in a flash of metal as she presses the syringe to Keith’s wrist, and sends him into slow, disorienting darkness.

Keith searches for Shiro in the darkness, but he isn’t there.

In his absence, Keith wails to the starless sky, black blood running down his chin.

*

Shiro can’t stop looking at Keith, slumped in the holding cell the Blades have placed him in, beneath the earth in their factory headquarters, still unconscious – though there’s no telling when he’ll wake, and what he’ll do when he does.

“And you’re certain his father was human,” Kolivan asks Krolia for the thirtieth time. She’s pacing in front of the cell, possibly even more disturbed by this than Shiro.

“Of course I’m certain of that,” she mutters. “And I knew Keith had...some inhuman traits, but nothing like...this.”

“And you,” Kolivan says, turning on Shiro, “you swear that you don’t know the cause of this?”

“No,” Shiro says. “I thought he was human – entirely human, I…” He shakes his head. “He looked human. He smelled human. His blood tasted…” Krolia gives him a look and Shiro coughs. “Anyway. It was only when he found me in the Order’s cells that I realized something was different.”

“Because he didn’t die when you attempted to murder him?” Krolia asks flatly.

“Yes, and…” Shiro hesitates. “And I believe he initiated a thrall state with me. I was hypnotized, or else controlled, under the Order, and he – broke through that compulsion.”

“If he can use a thrall, then he’s more dangerous than I thought,” Kolivan mutters, touching his bandaged throat. “The wound he left isn’t healing as fast as it should.” Kolivan nods to Shiro. “Yet yours is nearly reduced to a scar.”

So it is. Shiro touches the place where Keith bit him, and tries not to shiver.

“He can affect our healing ability,” one of the Blades, a doctor named Ulaz, concludes. “Perhaps some kind of venom in his saliva which counteracts – and perhaps even disables – the healing agents in our blood.”

“Do you think such an ability could allow him to kill a vampire, then?” Kolivan demands. “Without luxite – with his own hands and fangs?”

Ulaz shrugs. “If this theoretical venom of his could disable the healing agents for long enough, then...potentially, yes.”

“We must start running tests, at once,” Kolivan mutters.

“No,” Krolia and Shiro say at the same time. Krolia looks to Shiro, eyebrow raised.

Shiro clears his throat. “Keith isn’t dangerous,” Shiro says, and then amends, “he’s a good person. He’s not about to rampage through the streets, hunting down vampires like a feral thing.”

“Are you certain of that?” Kolivan retorts. “He seemed plenty feral when he attacked me as soon as I breathed on you.” Shiro winces, because that is a...painfully fair point.

“It’s awfully convenient that the only vampire the vampire-killer defends is yourself, Shirogane,” Ulaz adds.

“I don’t know what you’re accusing me of,” Shiro says, “but I don’t like it.”

“You never answered the thrall question,” Kolivan says. Shiro braces himself, readying a retort that he fears will fall on uncaring ears. The Blades’ loathing of the now-illegal thrall practice of old is notorious. Shiro is also fairly certain that he was once on their list because of his – coerced, but extensive – participation in it. They have every right to suspect him. But the thought of ever making Keith into a mindless, adoring thrall is one that fills him with disgust of the highest order.

Before he can say a word, Shiro receives an unexpected defense. “My son is no thrall,” Krolia declares. “I have kept a close eye on these two, and Lord Shirogane has not been keeping him in vegetative servitude. Nor does Shirogane keep any thralls at all – he has not done so for a century, at least.”

“Two centuries,” Shiro ventures.

Krolia ignores him.

“Even if you do not keep thralls...the Blade knows you have experiments underway in Brighton,” Kolivan says, and Shiro stiffens. “There have been reports of human volunteers – have you been creating a new creature? Is Keith one of these experiments?”

“You’re mistaken,” Shiro protests hotly, “I would never –”

“But you cannot deny the experiments in Brighton,” Kolivan continues, “and in light of that, we must consider you suspect –”

“Enough,” Krolia snaps, startling them all into silence. “Lord Shirogane is not to blame for this. I am the one who broke my Blade vows and mated with a human. I do not know why or how this has happened – I thought it was impossible for offspring to come of such a union – but evidently it can happen, and perhaps, in the rare event that it does, the offspring, which at first appears human...eventually becomes a monster.” Her shoulders slump.

“Keith’s not a monster,” Shiro says softly. “He’s not. I refuse to believe that. He’s just confused. He almost died – which was also not his fault. Whatever he is...it’s something new. Not a vampire, not a dhampir, not a human.”

“You vouch for him,” Kolivan says. “Why so much confidence, if you do not control him in some way?”

“No one controls Keith,” Shiro says. “He has stayed with me all of these years of his own accord – God knows why, for I’m hardly deserving of it, but he has. I trust him with my life – as he has trusted me with his, and now, against my will, I have betrayed that trust.”

“Do you expect us to believe you have _never_ thralled him?” Kolivan asks. “Why, then, would he call you his mate?”

“I believe I understand why,” Ulaz says. “You are bedding him, are you not?”

Shiro flinches. “I said it was _complicated –”_

Krolia looks at him, her brow lowering. “You’ve seduced my son into believing you are the love of his life? When did this happen?”

“That’s not –” Shiro clears his throat. “It began – a year ago, now – just a year, that’s all...”

“And what do you see him as? A passing amusement?” Her face is murderous. “He has devoted his life to you –”

“I know that!” Shiro says desperately, because he does, with agonizing clarity. “I don’t know why he loves me!”

Krolia falls silent, her anger frozen on her face.

“Good grief,” Ulaz says.

“You had better hope he remains devoted to you, then,” Kolivan says, “or he may not ask permission before feeding from you, next time.”

There’s a soft rustling from within the cell. All of them tense. Keith peers out at them, his head bowed and shoulders hunched. “I would never hurt Shiro,” he says quietly, gaze lowering. “Even if you don’t...want me to be your mate.”

“Keith,” Shiro starts, stricken, “that’s not what I –”

But Keith is already turning away, curling in on himself with a small sob. Shiro has a feeling he’s still not entirely aware – his eyes had been hazy, unfocused and confused.

“Get him out of there,” Shiro says, turning to Kolivan and Krolia, partly to appeal to them, partly because he can’t bear to look at Keith like this. “Please. He doesn’t need to be locked up. He’s scared – can’t you sense it?” He knows they can both smell his bitter fear and hear the anxious pound of his heart, and Kolivan’s gaze slides away, but Krolia’s stays fixed on him. “I’ll take care of him. I promise. He won’t be a problem; he won’t be a danger to anyone. But let me take him home. He needs to be somewhere familiar right now – we don’t know what an adverse environment could do to his condition.”

“I concur,” Krolia says. “Lord Shirogane could return to his manor with Keith, and I could accompany them –”

“You? You have betrayed our trust, Krolia,” Kolivan interrupts. “How long have you kept this secret?”

Krolia sets her jaw. “Twenty-five years.”

Kolivan swears. Ulaz slowly turns his gaze towards the ceiling, and Shiro is tempted to follow suit.

“I won’t apologize for it,” Krolia says, “because I’m not sorry. But I will try to make this right, Kolivan. Let me try. Don’t punish my son for my betrayal.”

Kolivan is quiet for a long while, during which the sounds of Keith trying not to cry are all the more evident. Shiro’s hands curl into fists, and Ulaz gives him a warning look. It’s an immense effort, but they uncurl, at length, just as Kolivan says, “Fine. You will return with Lord Shirogane and...your son...to the vampire lord’s manor. But Ulaz will accompany you.”

“I will?” Ulaz exclaims.

“He will?” Shiro demands.

“Yes,” Kolivan says.

“Very well,” Krolia says, as if it’s her house they’re making plans about, here.

But Shiro knows he and Keith are in no position to negotiate. He also knows he needs to get Keith out of here...and it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a dhampir doctor along, too. “Thank you,” he says to Kolivan. “You have my word that you won’t regret this.” Kolivan gives an only vaguely affirmative grunt in reply.

“There is another matter of business,” Krolia cuts in. “That of the Order of the Golden Dawn.”

Shiro tenses. What is she planning?

“I was not aware that we had business with them,” Kolivan says, folding his arms. “They are human.”

“Humans who prey upon innocents – is that not what we are sworn to guard against?”

“When the perpetrators are vampirekind, yes – otherwise, it is human business.” Kolivan looks wary, now.

She frowns at Kolivan. “You did not tell me that the Order was auctioning off vampires as pets. Did you know?”

“I don’t understand how this is relevant.”

Krolia’s eyes flash. “It is relevant because _they_ are the cause of _this!”_ She broadly gestures to Keith, to Shiro, and to the general mess that they’ve gotten into. “And it is relevant because if they had captured my son – which they very well could have, had I not found these two first – there is no telling what manner of torture they could have put him through, and who knows how that could have worsened this state?”

“You are speaking in hypotheticals –”

“And so? Suppose there are others like Keith – the impossible progeny of dhampir. Suppose the Order got a hold of them, and bound their wills to the Order’s will to exterminate vampirekind. Would they not have in their hands a terrible weapon, Kolivan?”

“They would,” he agrees slowly, “but there is no evidence to prove that they do. The Order is dangerous, Krolia – and again, they are not vampires.”

“If we ignore their cruelty and continue as usual, are we not simply helping them to accomplish their purpose?” Krolia presses. “We only hunt the monstrous members of vampirekind, but to the Order, it’s all the same – and suppose they were to find us, and take our own into their custody –”

“Enough,” Kolivan snaps. His tone leaves no room for disagreement, and Krolia straightens up, her lips pressing into a thin, disapproving line. “Go, Krolia. Take your miraculous kin with you.”

“Kolivan –” she starts, but he’s already leaving the room.

“You know he doesn’t like to discuss the Order,” Ulaz says when he’s gone. “It’s a sore spot.”

Krolia scoffs. Shiro eyes them both. “Why is it a sore spot?”

“I’ve shared enough of our secrets with you, Shirogane,” Krolia mutters. “Too many, in fact. Come, now – let’s get Keith home.”

The cell is opened, and when Shiro leans down to take Keith into his arms, the human – not human – but his beloved, either way – does not move, but makes a low, animal sound of pain, and keeps his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

*

Keith is in Shiro’s bed.

Normally, this would be a cause for celebration, but as it is, now it serves only as a reminder of his failures. He curls slowly into a fetal position among the cool silk sheets, burying his head in the pillow which smells, cruelly, of Shiro.

Shiro, who he had been so certain, in those moments of weird clarity, was his mate. Shiro, who had not returned the sentiment...and how could he? Keith’s mind is still hazy, fragmented and bewildered, but he understands that whatever he is, whatever he has become, it is incomplete, or else wrong, because – he had bitten Shiro. He had _fed from Shiro_ – horror floods through him as the memories string together. They still don’t make sense, not quite, but – Keith begins to tremble, violently.

The bed shifts behind him, and a cool hand touches his shoulder gently. “Dear one...how do you feel?”

Keith tenses, trembles harder, and then, unbidden, begins to cry in huge, gulping sobs that are more labored breaths than tears. Shiro leans over him, and Keith can smell his concern, the waves of it washing over him, as overwhelming and new as everything else.

“Keith, shhh,” Shiro soothes, brushing his hair from his eyes, his hands on Keith’s face, turning his cheek so that Keith cannot look away. “Hush, hush. What is it? Are you in pain? What can I do, Keith, what’s wrong?”

“I died,” Keith gasps, sucking in desperate, sour lungfuls of air, “I – I bled out in that cell, Shiro, I –”

Shiro recoils from him, as Keith knew he would, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. “What?” Shiro says. “No, Keith, that’s not – your heart was beating, I felt it.”

“When your trance was broken, yes, it was beating,” Keith whispers, staring at the pale linen of the pillows. “But it stopped, before that, somewhere in-between...and when my heart started again, I was something – different.”

“You’re not a vampire,” Shiro starts, “you didn’t turn –”

Keith draws in a breath. It hurts. “Because – I can’t be turned by you, can I?”

Shiro’s face crumples. He looks down. “Keith…”

“You said,” Keith whispers, breath hitching, “that – that woman, Krolia, is my mother. She’s a dhampir.” He closes his eyes. “I – wasn’t human. I was never fully human?”

“Yes,” Shiro whispers back. “So it seems.”

“Dhampir cannot – have children,” Keith stammers. “How –”

“I don’t know,” Shiro says, his voice breaking, reaching out to Keith again, “but – Keith, listen to me, we will figure this out. I promise –”

Keith searches his face desperately. “I wanted it to be you who turned me,” he whispers, “I – I always –” He can’t finish, the words catching in thorny pieces in his throat. “I guess – in a way – it _was_ you. You killed me.”

Shiro falters. “Keith, I don’t understand, what are you talking about –”

“In the darkness,” Keith whispers, rubbing his temples, “in...in your thrall, or mine, or whatever lies beyond it...I saw...something. It was...myself, but not. Myself, but...wrong.” He shudders. “And it said – it took me by the throat, and its claws cut me where you did, and it told me my blood...was touched, touched by the hunger. Then it – me? – stepped forward – stepped _into me.”_ Keith wraps his arms around himself. “And then I woke up.”

“It was...a dream,” Shiro says slowly.

“I know what I saw, Shiro!” Keith snaps, trembling at the thought that even Shiro doesn’t believe him, and if he doesn’t believe Keith, then maybe Keith really is just losing his mind –

“I know you do,” Shiro whispers. “Because I saw it, too. When I turned – I saw myself, heard myself, yet not myself, saying that very same thing. And then I woke up...like this.” Shiro pauses. “Well, far more bloodthirsty, but...you get the idea.”

“I’m not bloodthirsty,” Keith says with no confidence whatsoever. He bites his lip, and wonders if it’s his imagination that his canines feel sharper. Something tells him it isn’t. “You saw it too,” he murmurs. “Does every vampire…?”

“I don’t know,” Shiro admits. “I’ve never really asked them.” He eyes Keith, his hand still framing Keith’s cheek, thumb stroking gently over his cheekbone. “But you’re not a vampire. I don’t know what you are, but –”

Keith turns his face away, panic coiling in him again, hot and barbed and writhing. “I’m _wrong_ , I came back _wrong,”_ Keith whispers, “I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t even exist; Kolivan was right.”

“Don’t say that,” Shiro reproaches, “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about – you’re you, Keith, breathe.”

Keith shakes his head. “What if I hurt you, Shiro? I already – took your blood. And it was _good –_ it made me stronger. I wanted to keep taking it. I said I wasn’t going to hurt you, but I could have – a part of me wanted to, I think. A part of me needed to.” He swallows back more tears. “I don’t want to become – a thing that hurts people. I don’t want to become a thing that hurts _you,_ Shiro, promise me you won’t let me –”

Shiro takes him into his arms, crushing Keith firmly against his chest. Keith goes with a shocked hiccup, face smushed in the hollow of Shiro’s throat as he whispers against Keith’s hair, “Listen to me. You’re not a thing. You’re Keith. You never stopped being Keith. If you truly died – if I truly...ended your life, in that cell…” His embrace tightens. “Then that part of you, the part you didn’t know was there – it saved you, Keith. It can’t be bad if it saved you, and brought you back to me.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Keith whispers, but he closes his eyes, and pretends that it is. He breathes Shiro in, shallowly, because he’s afraid that if he drinks in too much of his senses, he’ll want more, again – and Shiro might be in danger. But still he clings, selfishly, to Shiro. “Why are you so sure that I’m still me?”

Shiro’s right hand, the claws cool against his jaw, trace down to his neck. Keith’s entire body goes still at the touch, and with the brush of vampiric magic, Keith feels the definite sharpening of the fangs in his mouth, digging into his lower lip enough to make blood bead up. His body, with its new, strange senses, perceives the magic as a threat. But that threat is outweighed by the overwhelming fondness he feels for the magic’s source.

“You’ve always been special,” Shiro tells him softly. “I told myself it was just...the way you were. I told myself you escaped the Ripper because you’re quick, and lucky, and tough. I told myself that you could handle me feeding from you more than I usually dared with humans because you never could turn down a challenge, and your blood was just...stronger. I told myself that sometimes your eyes looked a little gold because the light always catches you just right, everywhere –”

_“Shiro,”_ Keith protests, ears hot, but he doesn’t lift his head.

“It’s true,” Shiro murmurs. “But I know it’s still you, Keith, because I would recognize you anywhere. My thrall and my hands and my lips have touched you enough times to know who you are, beloved.”

“You say that so easily,” Keith whispers. “Beloved…” He does lift his head then, looking Shiro in the eye when he says, “But I can’t be your mate. Can I?”

Shiro’s brow furrows. “What –”

“I can’t be turned,” Keith says, “and I doubt I’m immortal, I don’t feel immortal, and you’re not my sire, you can’t be my sire, and maybe – maybe you never even wanted to turn me, or be my mate, we never really talked abou – mmph!”

Shiro kisses him, hard and with purpose, and licks the droplets of blood from Keith’s parted lips before he pulls away, eyes half-lidded and jaw set. “Keith,” he says, “I don’t care if I had a year with you or a thousand years. Of course I want you by my side. I just didn’t think…” He sighs. “I didn’t want to rush you into anything.”

“Need I remind you that we already waited for a decade?” Keith splutters, stunned from the kiss and from, well, the beautiful enigma that is Shiro. “You thought I needed more time to decide? Shiro –”

“I thought we _had_ more time,” Shiro corrects gently. “I didn’t think...this would happen.” He gives Keith an apologetic smile, as if any of this is his fault. “But...when we were with the Blades, you called me your mate like I was, already.”

“It felt right,” Keith says, ducking his head. “I didn’t think. I just said it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Shiro says. “I wanted it to be true.” He tilts his head. “Maybe...it is true, already.”

Keith blinks. “Huh?”

“Vampires, ah...well, surprise, we bite each other when we want to...make that official. And you did bite me,” Shiro points out. “And I bit you...many times.”

“Does that count?” Keith manages, dizzy at the thought that _Shiro is his mate,_ the thing in his hindbrain rearing its head again, craving, zeroing in on the hint of warmth and life in Shiro’s veins.

“It counts if we say it does,” Shiro replies. “But...we can always do it the way we want to, consciously, together – when you’ve _healed,_ Keith, stop trying to crawl into my lap.”

Keith has, indeed, crawled halfway into Shiro’s lap without really meaning to. He coughs. “I – I’m sorry. I think –” He tries and fails not to stare at Shiro’s neck. “I think I need – more, again.”

Shiro peers at him. “More of my blood, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” Keith ekes out. “Can I?”

“Whatever you need,” Shiro promises, smoothing his hand over the nape of Keith’s neck. He may not be Keith’s sire, but Keith can imagine. It’s so easy to imagine how it would have been – how it should have been – Shiro grasping his hand, squeezing gently, laying Keith down in their soft, warm bed, not pinning Keith to the cold cell floor. Shiro would have been careful, would have taken his time draining Keith, savoring every drop, not letting it all spill out from the gushing wound in a desperate flood. And when Shiro would have turned him, fed Keith his own black blood until the sweet pain of the transformation set in, he would have been at Keith’s side every step of the way, and when Keith awoke, he would have felt the sire bond between them, as he had always imagined it –

Keith shudders out another soft sob against Shiro’s throat and Shiro’s hand strokes his neck. “It isn’t fair,” Keith whispers. “If we had more time – if we had known what I was – maybe we could have figured something out before I turned into...whatever this is.” His eyes narrow. “But the Order took that away from us. They took _you_ away from me.” His next breath comes out in a low growl. “They _hurt_ you. They’ll pay for that.”

Shiro makes a low sound. “I’m alright, Keith. Don’t – don’t think about the Order. You saved me from them – at the cost of your life, apparently. They’re dangerous, Keith; we need to be careful, keep our distance, at least for now. I’m fine. I promise.”

“They hurt you,” Keith repeats stubbornly, looking up, meeting Shiro’s eyes – and all at once, something strange happens. He draws Shiro in, into himself, into his thrall, the darkness coiling swift and complete around them, pressing past Shiro’s defenses, into the depths of his mind. Shiro does not resist, though he flinches from him at first in shock, but Keith has the element of surprise. He feels Shiro’s consciousness falling, tumbling towards his own, into his waiting thrall. Keith catches him tenderly, catches the familiar piece of darkness that is his mate and enfolds him in fondness and feeling.

_...Keith?_ Shiro asks, his bewilderment rippling outward in a shower of flickering stars. _What are you doing…?_

_Tell me the truth,_ Keith urges, and Shiro’s darkness flares uneasily. _They hurt you – didn’t they? Don’t pretend you’re fine for my sake. I want to help you, Shiro. Show me – show me what they did to you._

_Keith,_ Shiro protests, weakly, _you don’t...want to see that._

_I know what I want,_ Keith retorts. _Show me._

But Shiro folds in on himself. _Keith,_ he whispers. _Let go._

_Let me help you!_ Keith pleads, trying to wrap tighter around him, to hold that darkness that he holds so dear ever closer.

But the darkness shrinks in his clutches, and Keith falters as he senses a trembling deep within it – Shiro, impossibly, for the first time in Keith’s memory, is afraid. _Please,_ Shiro says, so faint now Keith can hardly hear him, _don’t make me._

Keith recoils at the raw, helpless fear in his voice, and releases his thrall from Shiro in a nauseating rush that leaves them both momentarily stunned. Keith blinks rapidly down at Shiro, who, somewhere along the line, he’s pushed down to the bed, prone under him. Shiro’s brow shines with a thin veil of sweat, and he stares up at Keith with hollow eyes. “I’m sorry,” Keith’s already babbling, “I don’t know why I – did that.”

“Don’t do it again,” Shiro breathes. It sounds more like a plea than a command.

“I won’t,” Keith swears, “I – I just don’t know if I can control it. Maybe I should go, Shiro, stay in another room until I figure this out –”

“No,” Shiro says, gripping his wrist. “Don’t...don’t go. I trust you. I do. But it has been – a long time since anyone thralled me. It was never a pleasant experience for me.”

“When was the last time?” Keith whispers, laying down beside him, though he thinks he knows, already.

“It was Sincline,” Shiro says, closing his eyes and pressing the heels of his palms to his eyelids. “When he was trying to stop me from killing him...trying to make me turn against Allura and Lotor. Thankfully, Allura used the sire bond to snap me out of it.” Shiro pauses. “Most vampires cannot thrall other vampires; nor can dhampirs. The exceptions are those of great power, and those with very close bonds to their victim.”

“I don’t want you to be my – my victim,” Keith says, a lump in his throat. “I don’t want to be like Sincline – like the Ripper.”

“Oh, Keith,” Shiro says, rolling onto his side to face him and drawing Keith close, until they lie tangled together, clinging. “You aren’t. You won’t be. I love you, alright? I love you.” He guides Keith’s head to his neck, once more petting his hair, as if this is normal, as if this is just what they do. “Now, drink, beloved. It’s alright. I promise it’s alright.”

“Love you,” Keith whispers, and bites, black blood staining his lips like it belongs there.

*

“Hm,” Ulaz says, staring at Keith like he has just performed a herculean feat. “Well, that’s...interesting.”

Keith has not performed a herculean feat. He has eaten a muffin. Crumbs falling from his mouth, Keith sets the muffin down and says, “It’s interesting that I can eat a muffin?”

“Vampires cannot eat muffins,” Krolia offers helpfully from across the kitchen.

“Neither can dhampirs,” Shiro adds.

“Hm,” Ulaz repeats, circling Keith with a speculative eye. He reaches into his pocket and withdraws two vials filled with a black liquid and sets them down on the table before Keith. Shiro frowns at them. “Drink these.”

Keith swallows the last of the muffin. “What are they?” he asks. He’s still drowsy after his long nap with Shiro, and he didn’t take much blood from Shiro, but enough that the particular hunger for it has waned...for now.

“My blood, and your mother’s,” Ulaz says.

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Shiro starts.

“The last thing we need is for _you_ to start getting possessive over blood, too,” Ulaz retorts. “Just try it, Keith. I want to test a theory of mine.”

“Possessive?” Shiro demands, folding his arms. “I am _not.”_

“Liar,” Krolia says under her breath. Shiro cringes and avoids eye contact.

Keith is more focused on the vials. He picks up one and uncorks it, peering into it. It smells...not bad, which is worrying. It smells edible. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does know that when he tentatively tips it back and pours it down his throat, the taste fills him with a surge of power, and he grips the edge of the table, eyes wide, sucking in a breath as his canines scrape over his lip.

“Incredible,” Ulaz observes, and takes something else from his pocket – a mirror. He holds it out to Keith. “Look. You looked more or less human before feeding, and now…”

Keith stares at his reflection, uncomprehending. The scleras of his eyes are a faintly glowing gold, and though his irises remain dark, they, too, have a hint of glow in them when he tilts his head to the side and they catch the light. And his canines don’t just feel sharper – on the top and bottom, they are sharper, noticeably so, nowhere near the deadly points of vampire or dhampir teeth, but capable of piercing flesh nonetheless.

He blinks at the unfamiliar visage, and Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s still you,” he murmurs. “Don’t forget that.”

“Was that in question?” Ulaz asks, eyebrow raised.

Krolia is staring at the door. “Shirogane. We have company.”

The relative peace of the kitchen is disturbed as Allura bursts into the room...with Romelle close behind. The three vampires freeze on the threshold, staring at each other, and then, once they notice him, staring directly, uncomprehendingly, at Keith.

“Shiro?” Allura exclaims, then, eyes widening somehow further, _“Keith?”_

“Krolia,” Krolia says, holding out a hand. Ulaz does not offer his, and Allura, instead of shaking Krolia’s hand, gives her a look of utter bewilderment.

“I apologize, Allura,” Shiro starts, “Keith was – injured in the rescue mission you organized, and we took a slight detour –”

“You got out,” Romelle breathes, staring at Shiro, mouth in a soft ‘o.’ Her gaze darts to Keith. “And you – oh, dear.”

Shiro blinks at her. “Er – who are you?”

“Nevermind that,” Allura says, waving an impatient hand, “you’re alive – we thought the Order had captured you both! Mr. Serrano and Miss Holt were terrified out of their minds!”

“How unfortunate,” Krolia says. “Lord Shirogane nearly killed Keith. Thankfully, someone else was watching over him. Unthankfully, the trauma seems to have triggered the side of his nature that originates from me.” She folds her arms. “You are the one who sent my son into that den of iniquity alone, hm?”

“Your _son?”_ Allura gawps at them, then gathers her wits about her, straightens up, and says in a voice fit for a queen, “I believe there is some _explaining_ in order, no? Come. To the parlor, at once. Shiro, why aren’t you resting? You look a fright! Tea, we all need tea! And Keith, wipe that blood off your mouth – and you’re going to tell me sooner rather than later exactly why that blood is black, not red.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Shiro sighs, ducking his head and ushering everyone – even the reluctant, evasive Blades – off to the parlor to explain the unexplainable.

*

_Shiro isn’t your sire, then…? Oh, Keith. I’m so sorry._

Keith sits on the manor rooftop, knees tucked under his chin, looking out over the city. His eyes – his new eyes – pick out the details more easily in the dark than they ever did before. He wraps his arms around his bent legs and shivers. He fled from the parlor – subtly, with the excuse of fatigue – after Allura said those words.

It’s silly, perhaps, that after everything that’s happened, he’s so stuck on the fact that Shiro isn’t his sire; Shiro didn’t turn him; Shiro can’t turn him. But it doesn’t feel silly. Keith feels as if he’s been dealt a killing blow – again.

There’s a soft creak on the rooftop, and Keith whirls, arms uncurling, crouched and defensive.

“I did not mean to startle you,” Krolia says, stepping from out behind the chimney.

“You did,” Keith retorts, and clears his throat, settling back down. “How did you find me?”

Her expression softens. “I could never lose you, Keith,” she tells him.

Keith doesn’t have a reply to that. She sits down beside him, at a slight distance.

“I am sorry this happened,” she tells him.

“I don’t need your pity,” Keith mutters.

“It’s not pity,” Krolia says. “It’s grief.” He looks up. “For what could have been, I suppose. I wanted to be in your life. Your father wanted me to, also. But we both knew it could not be. So I have remained on the margins...trying to keep you safe.”

Keith looks out at the city. “When the Ripper attacked me,” he whispers, “it was you who stopped him from killing me, wasn’t it?”

“I intervened with my own thrall, yes,” Krolia says. “The Ripper was not expecting it; it broke his concentration on you for long enough to provide a window for escape. But part of that was you, as well. No human could have run so fast, or survived such a wound, or resisted such a thrall. When I found you, held by him, you were resisting it, Keith. I have always admired that in you – you do not surrender, even when all seems lost.”

“That’s just stubbornness,” Keith says, ducking his head.

“There is no ‘just’ about it,” Krolia says. “Not when it’s saved your life.”

Keith doesn’t tell her that his life wasn’t saved, in the end, because he doesn’t know if that’s the truth. He doesn’t feel dead...undead. He knows Shiro is, technically, alive. Vampires were killed, then resurrected – these lives are new ones. Perhaps, in Keith’s new life, he has a mother.

He turns to look at her. “Did you know my father died?”

“Of course I knew,” she whispers, her brow creasing. “I was the one who caught you when he threw you from that window, to save your life.”

Keith is frozen in that moment.

She looks down at her hands. “I left you there in the street, crying and covered in soot. I went back into the building –”

“– but fire can kill dhampirs…”

“You think I cared about that?” Krolia shook her head. “I loved your father more than life itself, Keith. But there was nothing I could do. By the time I reached him – there was nothing left to turn.” She closes her eyes. “And when I came back for you, the nuns had already taken you away. I thought you might be safe with them. So I watched from afar. And then the Ripper got you – almost got you – and then you fled to Lord Shirogane.” She eyes him. “Tell me: has he misused you, too?”

“Shiro was the only one in my life, after my father, who ever treated me right,” Keith retorts. “So no, he did not _misuse_ me.”

“I see.” Krolia tips her head back towards the sky. “I apologize. I thought he had not, but when he said he had bedded you, I feared…”

“He said _what?”_ Keith exclaims.

Krolia gives him a pained smile. “You were not entirely lucid, but believe me, Kolivan pressured him into divulging it.”

Keith frowns. “Kolivan...I do remember a few things about him. He said I should never exist.”

“He’s right,” Krolia murmurs. “You shouldn’t.”

Keith snorts, bitterness boiling up. “And yet.”

“Keith,” Krolia says, “do not for a moment think that means that I do not love you, and have loved you, for all your life – and will continue to love you for as long as that life lasts, which may, I suspect, be a long time indeed.”

Keith peers at her uncertainly, fumbling for words, struggling to return such a sentiment to a woman he has only just met. “How...how long?”

She hums. “Ulaz believes that the consumption of any vampiric blood – vampire or dhampir – gives you more vampiric characteristics. It stands to reason, then, that if you were to regularly consume such blood, you could also lengthen your lifespan considerably. You may never be a ‘true’ vampire, nor a dhampir, but you are still something other than human, and you may still share bonds as vampires do...with other vampires.”

“With Shiro?” Keith asks at once.

Her mouth twitches. “If that is what you wish, then I don’t see why not.”

“But he isn’t my sire –”

“It doesn’t matter what he isn’t,” Krolia says. “You know what he _is,_ don’t you? Pursue that.”

“You aren’t going to stop me?”

Krolia laughs, soft and sharp. “I have no desire to stop you. Nor do I think you would let me.”

“No,” Keith says, “I wouldn’t.”

Krolia sighs. “Shirogane was very dangerous, before my time. I hope he’s told you that.”

“That wasn’t his fault,” Keith mutters. “He would undo it, if he could.”

“But he cannot.” Krolia pauses. “Yet he has changed, that much is clear. In your presence, there is a softness to him, something yielding. That is special, Keith. That is powerful. Hold onto that.”

“As if I don’t love him for all his danger, too,” Keith says under his breath.

Krolia gives him a look. “Clearly.”

Keith covers his scarred neck and changes the subject. “So you think I might live a long time...but I have to hunt vampires to do it.”

Krolia shrugs. “The Blade hunts vampires.” She tilts her head. “And you have a vampire very willing to be hunted by you.”

“I’m not a Blade,” Keith says, ignoring her second – terribly accurate – comment. “And I doubt Kolivan would let me become one.”

“Kolivan is all bark, no bite,” Krolia says. “If you wanted to be a Blade...he would not stop you.”

“I don’t know what I want, quite yet,” Keith admits, looking away. Except for Shiro, he doesn’t say. He glances back at her. “But...will you stay, now that I know about...everything, and the Blade knows of me?”

“Stay?”

“Yes.” Keith clears his throat. “Around, you know. In case I wanted to...see you again.”

“Yes,” Krolia says, and something in Keith sunders in sheer relief. “I’ll be there, Keith. So long as you need me...I give my word.”

“Thank you,” Keith whispers, and after a while longer, she leaves him there on the rooftop, but even in her absence, he doesn’t feel the chill of the night anymore.

*

With the help of Ulaz’s studies, several things become very clear very quickly:

  1. Unless Keith has just consumed vampiric blood, he looks, and is perceived as (even by vampirekind) human.
  2. Keith can still eat human food and go outside, in broad daylight, without consequence. His sleep schedule was already wrecked, so it’s difficult to measure the effects on his circadian cycle, if any exist.
  3. Luxite has no more effect on him than, say, iron or steel.
  4. Keith is very bad at controlling his thrall – it feels like trying to change the current of an ocean – but his deep-rooted instinct to keep Shiro safe seems to have won out over the thrall instinct, at least for now.
  5. When Keith gets hungry for blood, he gets ravenous – and it makes him, for lack of a better word, _absolutely feral._
  6. Shiro likes it a little too much when Keith is in such a state.



At first, Keith was ashamed of his lack of control. In those first few weeks, he keeps his hunger a secret from Shiro for as long as he can, but Shiro always seems to know when Keith needs to feed. Keith fancies that it’s because of the bond that exists between them – whatever that bond is – or maybe Keith just isn’t very subtle.

But the first time Keith’s hunger returns, Shiro isn’t in a state to sate it.

Allura was right about Shiro needing to rest. He still doesn’t tell Keith exactly what the Order did, but soon after their escape, he slumbers, falling into a deep, silent stasis, his exhausted body – and mind – in need of repair. Keith curls up beside him, stubbornly unmoving, not leaving the bed unless absolutely necessary. Krolia brings up his meals – Keith suspects Ulaz does the cooking, as the kitchen is not Krolia’s strong suit – and with Ulaz, guards the manor.

The house’s few servants have been sent away from the time being, as Allura and Lotor suspect the Order of the Golden Dawn might be keen to strike back, and they don’t want any collateral damage. Allura has sent some of her vampires of the court to keep watch, and apparently Romelle has also volunteered. At first, this news surprises him – she hardly looks like a threat – but then Keith has to remind himself that she ate a person.

But the Order either doesn’t think the risk is worth it, or doesn’t care enough to retaliate, because the manor remains quiet, and Shiro slumbers in peace. Keith starts to get antsy towards the end of the week (and notes this in the small journal Ulaz gave him to record any of his “symptoms”) and is finally forced to admit defeat when he finds himself on the verge of biting Shiro in his sleep.

Though the more insidious voice in his head tells him that Shiro wouldn’t mind, and that in fact, Shiro would want him to take what he needs, Keith shrugs it off and drinks one of the vials Ulaz gave him, “in case of emergencies.” It quells the most vicious hunger pains, but that’s only the beginning. The next night is worse – because now, Keith does find himself sleeping through most of the day, waking disoriented in the early evening, and falling in and out of uneasy imaginings after that, pacing the length of the room, bathing until he can’t stand the sensation of the water against his prickling skin, moodily picking at the food brought up for him.

This hunger he feels is a secondary kind – he eats to fulfill a bodily need, but he _feeds_ to satisfy something else, something deeper.

It makes him feel utterly mad, prowling the chamber and tilting his head, listening to the sounds of the house, every creak and footfall, every wafting scent. He smells the vampires and dhampirs within, and though he never once forgets their names in his red haze, he catches himself thinking of them, more than once, as prey.

When Krolia brings him food that next night, after he’s drunk the other vial Ulaz gave him, she pauses at the way he’s crouched at the end of the bed, half-guarding Shiro, half-waiting to pounce. He must look like an animal, some savage beast of the night lying in wait.

She calmly sets the plate down on the bedside table and says, “Do you need more blood? I will alert Ulaz.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” Keith rasps.

“Of you?” Krolia regards him with a knowing eye. “You are my flesh and blood. I don’t fear you; I fear for you. How are you feeling?”

“Hungry,” Keith says. “The vials – won’t be enough.”

“Yes. Such is our nature – it’s never enough. Hunger always returns – in time, its presence may become a comfort, like an old friend.” She turns towards the door.

“I’m afraid of it,” Keith admits as she reaches for the knob. “How do I stop being afraid of it?”

“You stop doing what you do best,” Krolia retorts. “Stop resisting it.”

“But I’ll hurt Shiro –”

“No,” Krolia says simply, “you won’t.” She leaves him there, and not long after, three more vials are rolled under the door.

By the next night, Keith has emptied those vials, too. He lays on the bed, curled away from Shiro – this, after what must have been several hours of nosing at Shiro’s throat until he felt too guilty and too on the verge of snapping to continue. He tries to remember what Krolia said – _stop resisting it_ – but how can he, when he doesn’t even know what, exactly, he’s resisting? He could have ripped Kolivan’s throat out – and if he somehow stopped Shiro from healing, too…

Keith presses his face to the pillow, trying to calm down. He can go downstairs. He can ask Ulaz and Krolia for more blood. He has this under control. He’s not going to ravish Shiro in his sleep, so that he wakes up with Keith’s marks all over him – he’s _not,_ even as he whimpers at the mere thought of it.

There’s a hand on his shoulder. Keith stops breathing. Claws dig in through his thin linen shirt, kneading the muscle slow and teasing, catlike. “Your heart is pounding so loudly, I think it woke me,” Shiro murmurs.

Keith rolls around, said heart in his throat, staring at Shiro with naked desperation. Shiro’s pupils dilate as their eyes meet, his irises glowing a steady gold. “I’m sorry,” Keith whispers back, “I – I didn’t mean to. Go back to sleep.”

“With you looking at me like that?” Shiro chuckles and, _oh no,_ shifts closer. “I don’t think so.”

_“Shiro,”_ Keith says. It comes out in a thin whine.

“Hush,” Shiro says, his right hand moving from Keith’s shoulder to his cheek, claws spanning his jaw. “Tell me what you need.”

“You need to rest –”

Shiro puts a finger over his lips. Keith feels his fangs cut into his lower lip. “Not what _I_ need, sweetheart. What _you_ need.”

Keith’s lips part, and Shiro’s finger curls away, though his gaze remains. “You,” Keith says. “I – I’ve been taking the blood Ulaz gave me, but it’s not enough –”

“Insatiable,” Shiro teases, brushing Keith’s hair out of his face. He leans in, closer, so close Keith has to hold himself stiff, spine ramrod straight, to stop himself from going in for the bite. “Only I can satisfy you – is that it, Keith?”

Keith’s breath shallows. “You know it is.”

“Maybe I want to hear you say it.”

Keith swallows, some of his own blood mixed with his saliva. “It’s only you,” Keith tells him.

Shiro’s claws dance down to his throat, applying pressure, nearly a threat. “Prove it.”

Keith blinks at him, uncertain and wide-eyed, then surges forward to meet the pale curve of Shiro’s throat. But he never finds it – instead, he meets Shiro’s mouth, and fangs slice into Shiro’s lips just as Shiro’s fangs draw blood across Keith’s, red and black dripping down their chins as Shiro grabs his jaw, deepening the kiss, licking into Keith’s mouth. Keith moans, slumping into him, though the tension never leaves his body; he is a bow strung tight, and the sinews are on the verge of snapping entirely. He can taste the droplets of Shiro’s blood on his tongue, but it isn’t enough, not nearly enough.

But Shiro handles him with care. He draws Keith down, pulling back just enough for Keith to see his eyes, to be drawn into the lovely lantern glow of them. “Will you let me take you as _mine,_ Keith?”

Keith’s mouth is dry. The hunger in him roars. “Yes, sir,” he breathes.

Shiro’s eyes narrow, darken. “You’re going to ruin me, going on like that.”

“Good,” Keith says, and then he’s being kissed again, this time pinned by Shiro’s entire bulk, his thick thighs straddling Keith’s slim waist, keeping him down effortlessly...not that Keith’s keen to escape.

“You want to ruin me?” Shiro asks, wiping away a strand of pink-tinged spit as he pulls back. “I’d let you. A thousand times over, I’d let you, Keith.” His smile widens. “But tonight...you, first.”

Keith shudders, cock stirring, nudging at the hard flex of Shiro’s inner thigh. He can see Shiro’s own cock rousing beneath the dark silk robe he wears, sees the milky curve of Shiro’s chest where the robe gapes open at the top. “Do – do you want me to wear the ribbon?” Keith asks, eyes darting to the drawer in which it resides: a black satin ribbon, well-worn, the third of its kind, after the first one was ripped by very sharp teeth and the second one was stained under questionable circumstances. It works both of them up, Keith from wearing it and Shiro from seeing him in it, all for him, claimed by a strip of black satin.

But Shiro shakes his head. “I had something more permanent in mind.”

Keith’s eyes widen. His fingers curl into the sheets. “You want...to make me your mate. Officially.” The words don’t sound real, even as he says them. But they are – this is.

“Yes.” Shiro tilts his head, starlight hair falling into his face. “Only if you want.”

“I want,” Keith says. “You know I want.”

“It’s nice to ask,” Shiro retorts, flicking his claw against Keith’s throat hard enough to draw blood from the thin scratch. The quick pain makes Keith’s cock twitch in his pants, and he’s certain Shiro knows it.

“You’re not nice,” Keith counters, and Shiro answers him with a smile that very much proves Keith’s point.

“But you trust me,” Shiro says, looming over him, eclipsing the candlelight. It doesn’t matter: Keith can see him ever clearer in the dark. “Somehow...after everything.” His voice wavers, just a little, and Keith knows he’s thinking of the two of them in that cell, in chains and shadows.

“I trust you because of everything,” Keith tells him, and reaches up, pressing his thumb to Shiro’s parted lips, letting the soft flesh of it touch the cold curve of wicked fangs. Shiro does not bite, not breaking his gaze as he presses his lips to the pad of Keith’s thumb, kissing it. Keith’s fingers curl when the vampire grasps his wrist, and brings that, too, to his lips in a chaste kiss. Keith’s breath hitches. “And if we ruin each other, Takashi Shirogane, then I believe that would be a life well-spent.”

Shiro hums in distracted agreement. “You ruin me every time I look upon you,” he sighs, and this time, when his lips trail down to Keith’s forearm, he does bite, lightning-quick, striking where the flesh is softest and most vulnerable. Keith groans as Shiro’s venom hits his bloodstream, the vampire feeding in steady, languorous pulls. He stops only a few seconds in, healing the wound in slow licks, which means he has far more bloodletting in mind. Shiro is good at pacing himself...until he gets carried away, and it is always Keith’s goal to get him carried away.

Looking at Shiro’s bloodied mouth, Keith growls, arching up against him, trying to angle for Shiro’s neck. “Shiro,” he hisses, “I need –”

Shiro keeps him pinned. “You need me, don’t you?” Keith nods, brow furrowing. “Then you’ll take what I give you.”

Keith whines louder. “Shiro – sir – I’ve been waiting, waiting for you, and I’m – hungry –”

“Patience,” Shiro says mildly. “You need to learn some control, Keith.”

Keith forgets himself. He bares his newfound teeth and snarls, “I said I’m _hungry!”_

Shiro is quiet. His eyes burn. “I heard you,” he says, and then the brute, psychic force of his thrall grabs Keith by the throat and pulls him under, like a scruffed kitten.

Keith thrashes against the spiraling cosmos which overtake him, clouding his mind in their inky wells, but it’s no use – and they both know he doesn’t really want to escape it. He hears Shiro as if from underwater, and though he sees Shiro before him, looking down at him from glowing golden eyes, he cannot move away: he is held by the sheer power of Shiro’s will, and he loves every second of it.

“Now, that wasn’t very polite,” Shiro drawls.

_Hungry,_ Keith repeats petulantly in the space of their minds, because he can be, at times, a bit of a brat.

A smile tugs at Shiro’s lips. “Mm, yes, so am I.” He leans closer. “How is it that you’re even prettier when you get worked up like this? Ruder, but prettier.” He chuckles. “If I let you go, will you be a good boy?”

_Yes,_ Keith promises, _yesyesyes._

“So eager,” Shiro murmurs, half to himself. “Are you sure? But I thought you said I could make you mine.”

Keith’s chest heaves. Shiro’s hand is sliding down his body, claws pushing up the hem of his shirt and unlacing his pants just enough to free the heavy arc of his cock, and there’s nothing Keith can do to stop him.

He could try to resist it, now, throw the force of his thrall against Shiro’s – but truth be told, Shiro is the one thing in Keith’s life that he has never wanted, never needed, to resist. Shiro will take care of him, because Shiro may not always be nice, but he is good, and this is a truth Keith knows without doubt.

Shiro falters above him and Keith wonders how many of those thoughts he’s heard. He doesn’t mind having Shiro in his head. Anyone else he would fight off kicking and screaming.

But not Shiro. Never, ever Shiro.

Shiro is still above him. His eyes shine, but not just from the glow, now. “What did I ever do to deserve you?” he asks, his other hand tracing Keith’s lips, the curve of his cheek, the lift of his brow, like he’s trying to memorize it all. But Keith’s not going anywhere.

_You once told me I deserved worship, the world, the empire itself on a golden platter,_ Keith whispers into the dark, the words weaving, tangling tight and sweet around them. _You deserve that too, Shiro._

“Forget ruining each other, we’re going to ruin the world in our desperation to prove how deserving the other is, aren’t we?” Shiro laughs, but Keith sees the glisten of a precious few tears falling.

_If I must,_ Keith says.

The things he would do for Shiro are, in places, so limitless it might be troubling. Kolivan was wrong to say that Keith was Shiro’s thrall, but what he truly is, Keith muses, might be something even more dangerous – for his devotion, fierce and endless as it is, is entirely of his own free will. It cannot be broken by breaking a thrall, as Shiro does then, the flickering cosmos falling away, leaving Keith shivering in pleasant withdrawal as his body once more returns to his own control.

“I fear we are both feeling too tender for cruel games tonight,” Shiro huffs, bumping his nose against Keith’s.

Keith raises an eyebrow. “Are we? I’m still hungry.” He is.

“Oh?” Shiro laughs at him softly. “Then let me help you with that.” He does not lean down to offer his neck, but instead presses two fingers to Keith’s parted lips. Keith welcomes them in, sucking on Shiro’s fingers until they are warm and sopping with his spit, and perhaps with a hint of their mixed blood.

When his focus on tasting Shiro’s skin begins to wane, Keith nibbles a little on his fingertips, and Shiro scolds him with a light tap on his flank, a warning of “punishment” to come. But Shiro’s never been very good at punishing him – or maybe Keith just enjoys it too much. Keith arches into the touch, and Shiro rolls his eyes, but his smirk remains. He tugs his fingers free of Keith’s mouth, and Keith keeps his lips parted, wet and open and yielding, looking up at Shiro with half-lidded, heated eyes.

He doesn’t expect Shiro to reach down, hand slipping beneath the black silk robe to press spit-slicked fingers into himself. Keith groans as Shiro lifts up just enough for Keith to see the shadow of his hand working between his spread thighs, which tighten around Keith’s hips as he rocks back against his own knuckles.

“Fuck,” Keith hisses, his nails digging into the sheets, reaching up to grasp Shiro’s thighs as dull nails turn half-claw. Shiro rumbles with an answering sound, staring intently down at Keith and biting his lower lip when Keith’s claws rake slowly over the span of his thighs, framing them in lines of fire. His cock throbs, harder when Shiro casually unties the robe with his free hand, letting it fall fully open, framing the muscled arch of his body and the thick, dripping length of his cock.

Keith’s mouth waters, and he squirms as Shiro tips his head back with a pleased sigh, lashes fluttering, mouth falling open, fingers curling within. “Still hungry?” Shiro asks, cracking an eye open and grinning. He’s far too pleased with himself, and Keith loves him for it. He loves seeing Shiro like this, reveling in his own beauty and pleasure.

“For you, always,” Keith manages, and Shiro flushes dark and sudden.

Before Keith, Shiro had so rarely – if ever – allowed himself such genuine self-indulgence, and Keith takes pride in the fact that he’s helped Shiro see that he’s someone deserving of such things. Even if it means Keith is now suffering, cock aching with want and breath shallowing with every roll of Shiro’s hips. He might be drooling – he doesn’t care. Shiro’s eyes flash as he shudders with a stuttered moan, four fingers plunging deep into his greedy hole. Keith is now openly panting. He’s never been able to hide how desperate he gets for Shiro, and Shiro knows it. Shiro likes seeing him desperate...and Keith loves letting him see it.

It feels like there’s another layer of vulnerability now, with the hunger consuming him as he stares up at Shiro; it weaves in alongside the desire and arousal into one great big Need, so heavy and complete that Keith feels like he’s choking on it in the best way.

“Shiro,” Keith begs, “sir – _please,_ make me yours –”

Shiro gasps, the first truly affected sound he’s made so far, cock twitching against his belly. He reaches down to touch himself, and Keith eagerly sits up to help, to bring relief to his own waiting cock, but Shiro stops him with a single look. “Watch,” Shiro orders, the command undermined only a little by the breathless quality of his voice. Maybe he sees the anguish in Keith’s eyes, because he adds, softer, “Be patient, beloved, and I promise it will be worth it.”

Keith relaxes, or rather forces himself to, as Shiro strokes his own cock mere inches from Keith’s, making small, sweet sounds as he does so, playing with his balls and his hole, arching back so Keith can see his rim shiny and loose from teasing. Keith realizes Shiro is putting on a show, just for him, displaying himself in a way no one else gets to see – in a way no one else will _ever_ get to see.

Keith growls, the possessive sound bubbling up from deep in his chest, and the way it makes Shiro’s cock twitch is unmistakable. He wets his lips and whispers, “You love this, don’t you, sir? Touching yourself for me – opening yourself up for me –”

_“Keith,”_ Shiro grunts, as if it’s been punched out of him, his cock swelling in his fist, a dark claw rubbing over the leaking slit.

“Just like that,” Keith breathes, “I love how you say my name when you’re like this, sir…beautiful, you’re so beautiful.”

Shiro whimpers, belly sucking in and head falling back. He’s close. His cock jumps.

“Come for me, sir,” Keith begs, “Takashi, come for me, because – because you’re _mine –”_

_“Ah,”_ Shiro gasps, coming over his own fist, over Keith’s belly, over Keith’s reddened cock, making a mess between the two of them. Keith can’t bear to just sit and watch through it – he takes Shiro’s face between his hands and drags him down into a bruising kiss, catching Shiro’s moans on his tongue, biting at his lips as much as he dares, groaning when Shiro’s fangs catch and their mouths flood with the taste of iron.

Shiro swears as the kiss breaks, and before Keith can say another word, Shiro’s cum-drenched hand is wrapping around the base of Keith’s cock. The sudden contact is a shock to his system, but that’s nothing compared to the vampire shifting atop him until Keith feels the head of his cock nudging against Shiro’s hole, and then Keith’s cock sinks in just like that, up to the hilt.

Shiro’s tight, he always is, but his body is pliant and loose-limbed with the hazy glow of climax, and there’s something unspeakably sensual about the juxtaposition of Keith’s cock buried in him, hard and aching, and Shiro’s cock rubbing against Keith’s belly, soft and spent, the heavy velvet length streaked with its own spendings.

Keith groans at the overwhelming sensation, hips jerking of their own accord as soon as he’s fully sheathed, and Shiro has the audacity to laugh, breathless and delighted, circling his hips and pinning Keith by the waist so that all he can do is meet every bounce of Shiro on his cock with a helpless shudder and a strangled plea.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Shiro coos, and his voice is wrecked, but there’s a power to it, to him, and Keith has always been drawn to that power like moth to flame.

“No,” Keith says through gritted teeth, “I want to make you come on my cock this time, sir.”

Shiro’s pupils dilate. His hands loosen their grip, sliding up under Keith’s shirt to push it up and off. As soon as Keith’s free of the fabric and of Shiro’s grip, he fucks up into him, hard and without hesitation, because he knows Shiro can take it. Shiro groans, spine arching, grinding down against Keith’s cock as he thrusts up again, again, his clawed hands grabbing for Shiro’s hips to pull them flush together, to find the angle that will make Shiro’s low, subtle sounds fall away into desperate moans and keens of Keith’s name loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. Keith wants them to hear. He wants them to know that Shiro is his, as he is Shiro’s.

Keith doesn’t know how long they’ll have together. But in these moments, watching Shiro fall to pieces over him, gasping for more, forgetting restraint in favor of helpless praise, capturing Keith’s lips in a shivery kiss as his thighs squeeze hard, keeping Keith close with no hope of escape, Keith knows that what they have is not something that could be contained in any mortal lifetime. _I love you,_ Shiro whispers to the corner of his mouth, and then chants it to the ceiling, head thrown back, _I love you I love you I love you,_ his hands braced on the headboard, the bed creaking as Keith pulls him down into every thrust, keeping him anchored.

Shiro’s cock swells between them just as Keith’s pace starts to falter. If Shiro needed him to, he would last the entire night and then some, and afterwards, Keith suspects they will tumble around the bed together for hours and hours, but right now they are both too desperate for this act’s conclusion to even attempt stamina. _Mine,_ Keith growls against the shell of Shiro’s ear, dragging kisses and bruises downwards, _let me make you mine._

The hunger is transformed, with Shiro. As Keith fucks him, it is a kind of claiming, and a kind of devouring, too – somewhere towards the end of it, they meet each other’s eyes in a golden collision of thralls, two opposing forces crumbling to surrender in the face of each other, cresting like a wave only to be swallowed up by the ocean they share. Keith was afraid, but looking into Shiro’s eyes, feeling Shiro stretched wide and wanting around him, seeing the proof of what Shiro feels for him in his glowing eyes and honest body...there can be no fear.

Shiro’s cock is full and heavy again now, slapping Shiro’s rippling belly on every downstroke, and as soon as Keith takes it in hand, it’s over for them both. Shiro bows forward as if shoved, crumpling over Keith, cock twitching in his hand and a shout torn from Shiro’s throat as Keith holds him down on the full length of his cock and he comes again. Another time, Keith might soothe him through the oversensitivity, but now, he groans and fucks Shiro through it, fucking into tightening, perfect heat until he follows him over the edge, cock emptying in hot spurts, filling him up.

As Keith comes, Shiro fumbles for his hand, squeezing, then slowly slumps over Keith, resting his forehead on Keith’s shoulder and shaking as Keith rides out his climax. The position puts his throat before Keith’s panting mouth, and it’s second nature when he seizes Shiro’s neck and finally, sweetly, frantically, bites.

He doesn’t realize Shiro has done the same to him until he feels the hot blood running in rivulets down to the hollow of his collarbones, Shiro’s fangs buried in his flesh, the soft wet sounds of the two of them feeding filling the room along with the soft wet sounds of their joining. Keith laps up the blood that flows from shallow wounds, dark as ink but twice as thick; he catches it all on his tongue, lavishes Shiro’s neck with sloppy kisses, purring as the hunger ebbs and settles, full and satisfied...for now.

Shiro swallows and pulls away, and he hardly heals the wound, so that when Keith touches his fingertips to it, they come away sticky, red. He’s still inside Shiro when the vampire sits back, astride his hips, touching his own bloodied neck with a small, wondering smile. “My mate,” he murmurs.

Neither of them are thralled, but Keith swears that around them, the cosmos flicker, drawing them both into their own world, their own shared darkness.

“Come back,” Keith whispers, at once aware of the cold night air on his bare chest, needing to touch Shiro, to hold him.

“To you,” Shiro sighs, folding down easily into his arms, “always.”

Keith tucks his face into Shiro’s hair and breathes him in.

Perhaps what he is, whatever he is, is an impossible, monstrous, frightening thing, after all. But with Shiro, he has always just been Keith: orphan, valet, steward, best friend, lover, mate.

“You know,” Shiro says, muffled in the crook of his neck, “you asked me, once, if it was true that vampires lived forever.” Keith hums, stroking his hair. Shiro nestles closer. “And I said I didn’t know, but that maybe, when forever came...I’d find out.” He lifts his head, his gaze so soft that Keith almost has to look away. Almost. “I think I’d like to find out, with you,” Shiro says.

Keith doesn’t know if they have forever, but he wants it. His life is already impossible. What’s a little more?

Keith traces their marks, signed in black and red. “Then let’s find out.”

Someday, perhaps, the dawn might come for the two of them.

But with Shiro beside him, Keith doesn’t think it stands a chance.


End file.
